Faculty - Gold Coast Cardiology

Professor Jayasinghe is Medical Director of the Cardiology Department – Gold Coast University Hospital, Professor of Cardiology Griffith University, Clinical Professor of Medicine Macquarie University Sydney, and adjunct Professor of Medicine Bond University Gold Coast.

He has extensive experience as an Interventional cardiologist and is an academic researcher in field of Cardiology worldwide having published articles in different medical magazines/ journals.

Dr. Rihal graduated from the University of Manitoba Medical School and completed his post graduate training at Mayo Clinic.

Following his first faculty position at McMaster University he returned to Mayo in 1995, where he has served in several leadership roles including directing the cardiac catheterization laboratory and chairing the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine.

Since 2016 Dr. Rihal has chaired the Personnel Committee in Rochester and has been on the forefront of developing and instituting institutional approaches to sexual and other harassment.

In 2021 he joined the Mayo Clinic Board of Governors and Trustees and now chairs the Institutional People and Culture Committee, which is charged with development and implementation of people, workforce, and cultural strategies in support of Mayo’s strategic plan.

After completing his studies in medicine at the University of Sydney, Dr Suku Thambar undertook training in
cardiology at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney. He then completed a two-year interventional cardiology fellowship
at Rhode Island Hospital in the United States.

In 2000 Dr Thambar was employed as the Senior Staff Specialist Cardiologist at Hunter New England Area
Health, Newcastle, NSW. He holds a conjoint appointment of Senior Staff Interventional Cardiologist at the
John Hunter Hospital, and Senior Lecturer of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Newcastle. He is also a
Visiting Interventional Cardiologist at the outlying Tamworth Base Hospital.

Associate Professor Hal Rice Dr Hal Rice is Director of Interventional Neuroradiology at Gold Coast University Hospital in Queensland Australia. He studied Medicine at the University of Queensland and Specialist training in Radiology at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital before fellowship training in Diagnostic and Interventional Neuroradiology at The Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.

Returning to the Gold Coast in 2002 he founded the Interventional Neuroradiology service at Gold Coast Hospital and subsequently founded Qscan Radiology Clinics which as the Qscan Group has grown to become one of Australia’s largest Radiology group practices with over 85 practices and 1200 staff members. He along with his colleague Dr Laetitia de Villiers hosted the World Federation of Interventional and Therapeutic Neuroradiology 13th Congress in November 2015.

He is dedicated to accelerating innovation in the endovascular treatment of brain vascular abnormalities, aneurysms and acute ischaemic stroke. The service at Gold Coast University Hospital treats patients locally and from throughout Australia with acute stroke patients airlifted up to 2000km from remote locations. The service has been instrumental in developing innovative treatment techniques with flow diversion therapy, Corindus robotic neurovascular procedures and first in human device clinical trials.

He is co-founder of NeuTex Image Guided Therapy Surgical and Robotics Training center at the Gold Coast Health and Knowledge Precinct. A facility dedicated to education, training and innovation that utilises state of the art medical imaging equipment and 3D printed anatomic models to precisely replicate surgical treatments for medical specialist training and biomedical innovation. The NeuTex centre regularly hosts visiting specialists from across Australia and throughout the Asia Pacific region for hands on workshops fostering international collaboration and introducing new technology that benefits patients with complex neurovascular disorders.

He is a frequently invited keynote speaker at local and international conferences, a published author in major international journals and founding chair of the national neurovascular NeuroExchange annual conference since 2009. He has extensive board experience previously as the national Treasurer of RANZCR and executive board member of Qscan Group. Currently holding board positions with the Gold Coast Titans NRL team and Griffith University Council.

team-member-img
Dr Laila Khan
Staff Specialist Imaging Cardiologist The Canberra Hospital
Dr Laila Khan is a Staff Specialist Imaging Cardiologist currently based in the Nation’s Capital at The Canberra Hospital.

Dr Khan undertook Cardiology Advanced Training at The Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane and subsequently completed an Advanced Echocardiography Fellowship at Gold Coast Health Service. Dr Khan was the inaugural Advanced Echo Fellow at Gold Coast Health Service and won the 14th Echo Hong Kong Young Cardiologists/Fellow Echo Case Competition in 2023.

Dr Khan has a great interest in both valvular and non-valvular structural interventions, infective endocarditis, pulmonary hypertension and perioperative medicine.

The laboratory of Atta Behfar, M.D., Ph.D., uses state-of-the-art technologies developed at Mayo Clinic to understand heart disease at its most elemental level. With this understanding, Dr. Behfar and his colleagues are doing cardiovascular regeneration research with the aim of developing novel therapies to prevent and cure chronic heart conditions.
Specifically, the group led by Dr. Behfar focuses on development and use of both stem cells and protein-based therapies to reverse injury caused by lack of blood flow to the heart.
Goals include:
• Development and application of a ready-to-use protein-based technology to protect the heart at the time of infarction
• Application of highly reparative cardiopoietic stem cell technology to a broad range of heart failure conditions
Focus areas
• Phase III clinical testing of cardiopoietic stem cells in patients with end-stage heart failure
• First-in-human, or Phase Ib, testing of cardiopoietic stem cells in the setting of heart surgery:
o Valvular heart disease with low ejection fraction
o Ischemic and nonischemic heart disease requiring left ventricular assist device (LVAD) implantation
o Ischemic heart disease requiring coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG)
• Development and validation of a rapid diagnostic panel to identify patients at highest risk of heart failure following a heart attack
• Optimization and preclinical testing of protein delivery to the heart following infarction

Dr Tony Vo is a staff specialist cardiologist at Gold Coast University Hospital. He performs both coronary and structural interventional with a special interest in PFO and ASD procedures. Dr Vo earned his medical degree from the University of Melbourne
and completed his cardiology training at various Australian teaching hospitals including Royal North Shore Hospital, Ryde Hospital, Launceston General Hospital and Royal Darwin Hospital before settling into sunny Queensland and undertaking his Interventional Cardiology Fellowship at the Gold Coast University Hospital.
He will be going to the United States later this year for further education and training in PFO/ASD closures. He is actively involved in teaching has been recognised and been invited on numerous occasions by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CVRF) to be the Australian ambassador for major internationally recognised interventional cardiology meetings
(TCTAP, AP Valves and Structural Heart and Complex PCI).

Professor Stephen Worthley is a globally renown interventional cardiologist with a particular focus on valve replacements.
He regularly teaches and trains cardiology fellow students in a variety of interventional procedures as well as being active in research with over 230 published papers.

Stephen graduated from Medicine at the Adelaide University. His training included his Cardiology fellowship at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, his PhD at the Mount Sinai Medical Centre in New York, and post-doctoral fellowship at Monash Medical Centre, Melbourne.

Prof Kuljit Singh is a senior staff specialist cardiologist at the Gold Coast University Hospital . He is a coronary and structural interventional cardiologist.
Kuljit completed his PhD in Cardiology at university of Adelaide with a research medal and interventioanl cardiology fellowship at the Ottawa Heart Institute.

Associate Professor Dr Astin Lee is a consultant and interventional cardiologist with a clinic in Wollongong.

Associate Professor Lee graduated from the University of Sydney with First Class Honours in Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery in 1997.

He completed his cardiology training in 2004 and an interventional fellowship at Westmead Hospital in 2005.

Associate Professor Lee holds Fellowships from:

The Royal Australasian College of Physicians
The Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand
The American College of Cardiology
The European Society of Cardiology
The Royal College of Physicians (London)
The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Intervention.
He is currently the Director of Cardiology at Wollongong and Shellharbour Hospitals. He is also the Head of Cardiac Services in the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District overseeing the delivery of cardiac services from Bulli to Milton-Ulladulla.

He is a Clinical Associate Professor of the School of Medicine at the University of Wollongong.

Dr Peter Bailey completed my medical degree at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada graduating in 1981. My neurology fellowship was at the Montreal Neurological Institute at Mc Gill University in Montreal Quebec graduating in 1985.

He worked as a general neurologist with an interest in stroke at Saint John New Brunswick from 1985 to 2008 and volunteered in Malawi Africa for 2 years and then moved to the Gold Coast in 2011 where Dr Bailey currently presides.

Dr Greg Starmer is a Clinical and Interventional Cardiologist with special interests in interventional cardiac and endovascular procedures, including coronary angioplasty and stenting, percutaneous valvuloplasty and structural heart interventions.
Greg then completed his Physician training and Advanced Cardiology training at the Princess Alexandra and Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital in Queensland prior to moving with his family to London, Ontario, Canada where he completed a fellowship in Interventional Cardiology at the London Health Sciences Centre, University Hospital.
Greg returned to Far North Queensland in 2011 and commenced practice at both the Cairns Hospital and Cairns Private Hospital. He is the current Director of Cardiology at the Cairns Hospital and is an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the James Cook University School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Ben registered as a Cardiologist in 2009, having completed advanced training at the Princess Alexandra and The Prince Charles Hospitals.

In 2011 Ben completed a two-year fellowship in Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology at the Foothills Hospital in Calgary, Canada. During this time, Ben performed Atrial Fibrillation/SVT ablations and complex device implantations and extractions.

Ben’s special interests include atrial fibrillation, heart rhythm disorders, ablation of arrhythmias and implantation and management of pacemakers and defibrillators.

Dr Sylvio Provenzano (MD, MSc, FRACS) is a cardiothoracic surgeonand a TAVI implanter, with special interests in structural heartdisease, complex cardiac operations and ECMO support.
Dr Provenzano extensively collaborates with cardiologists andintensivists at the GCUH, in research and clinical practice.
Dr Provenzano has a strong background in congenital and valvulardisease, including endocarditis. He has studied and trained in Brazil,USA, Germany and Australia.
Dr Provenzano holds a position of senior specialist at the GoldCoast University and visits the GC Private Hospitals.

Having trained on three continents, Africa, United Kingdom and Australia, Dr Stroebel has been exposed to all aspects of cardiothoracic surgery and a diverse variety of pathology. He believes in holistic patient care and working within a multidisciplinary team for improved patient outcomes, and strive to deliver state-of-the-art, evidence based care to his patients