Bishan Rajapakse

Bishan is a Sri Lankan born, New Zealand medical graduate in the final stages of Emergency Medicine training who is passionate about medical education, wellbeing, and international emergency medicine.

His medical training has included basic surgical training, research and medical work in UK, New Zealand, Australia and Sri Lanka.

When Bishan returned to Sri Lanka in 2006 to carry out post Tsunami community work he soon fell in love with his country of origin and repatriated, becoming a dual citizen.

He spent the next few years conducting research on improving the acute management of organophosphorus poisoning, and evaluating the “train the trainer” system of resuscitation education for rural doctors.

Bishan’s research explored the gaps between evidence and clinical practice, and between resuscitation knowledge and ground-level educational practices, resulting in a PhD on “knowledge translation” awarded through the Australian National University.

His current research projects are to do with promotion of workplace wellbeing through mindfulness practices.

Bishan is also a keen medical blogger and part of the #FOAMed community (@trainthetrainer), and uses this role to advocate for the global development of the Emergency Medicine specialty.

He currently serves on the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine’s “International Emergency Medicine Committee” (IEMC), and promotes the dissemination of information through blog posts, interviews and a Facebook group dedicated to this cause.

Bishan’s extra curricular interests include surfing, salsa dancing, Kandyan dancing, poetry, guitar playing and peace advocacy.

He is thoroughly looking forward to the “Developing EM conference” in Sri Lankan this year and is grateful be able to contribute in a small way.

Bishan’s related web links;

https://bishansworld.wordpress.com/tag/phd/ (Sri Lankan field work and PhD on knowledge translation)

http://lifeinthefastlane.com/author/bish/ (Blog posts on International EM)

https://vimeo.com/41770360 (Global health talk on Bishan’s journey of international research)