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One of Gold Coast Health’s most recent surgical recruits has been awarded a Fulbright Future Scholarship that will see him work with researchers at the prestigious Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles.
Dr Joshua Kovoor joined Gold Coast Health last month as a General Surgery Principal House Officer at Gold Coast University Hospital.
Later this year, however, the 28-year-old will set off for Dr Andrew Hung’s laboratory at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre where he will continue his research into robotic surgery and artificial intelligence in healthcare.
Dr Kovoor, who holds a PhD in Surgery from the University of Adelaide, said the scholarship recognised the effort he had put into his studies and career over the past five years.
“On a personal level, this is an award that represents a lot of the work I’ve put in behind the scenes over the past few years and a lot of the sacrifices that have gone into that,” Dr Kovoor said.
“It shows that it’s all paid off and I’m honoured to receive it.”
Through his PhD at the University of Adelaide, Dr Kovoor, along with his friend, colleague and 2024 Fulbright Future Scholar Dr Stephen Bacchi and a broader collaborative, developed an artificial intelligence (AI) system called the ‘Adelaide Score’, which integrates several sets of data to predict the likelihood of a patient being discharged from hospital.
During his Fulbright Future Scholarship at Dr Hung’s lab, Dr Kovoor hopes to further his research and explore the intersection of robotic surgery and artificial intelligence to enhance the training of future surgeons, and to predict and improve outcomes for surgical patients.
“Dr Hung is a Urologist and robotics specialist, whose research is developing AI systems that can analyse the videos used in robotic surgery,” Dr Kovoor said.
“I’m really interested in these two technologies — AI and robotics — they are at the cutting edge of surgery.”
Dr Kovoor said he applied to join Gold Coast Health early in his career as an aspiring future surgeon as the organisation is known for being at the forefront of innovation and advances in healthcare.
“I think, particularly for artificial intelligence, there are applications in almost every aspect of healthcare, because it can synthesise and process information extremely quickly,” he said.
“I think AI will be a part of almost all aspects of healthcare in the future and the systems that embrace that, and embrace it safely, are going to be at the forefront.
“And for surgery, I think many specialties are trending towards robotics systems being a crucial part of the future.
“These systems are becoming more and more efficient, more and more safe and I think they’ll play a huge part of healthcare in the next five to ten years.”
Dr Kovoor will travel to Los Angeles in August to complete his Fulbright Future Scholarship.
