The Department of Anaesthesiology has a diverse research programme, ranging from the clinical assessment of novel drugs, through to the use of simulation as a tool for analysing error in anaesthesia. Areas covered:
- Airway management
- Anaesthesia, intensive care, peri-operative medicine (including acute pain management), chronic pain management and resuscitation
- Circadian biology and animal behaviour, fatigue, performance and implications of shift work
- Diving and hyperbaric medicine
- Pharmacology
- Safety and quality in healthcare and related medico legal issues

Research opportunities
Research conducted in the Department of Anaesthesiology ranges from the clinical assessment of novel drugs, through to the use of simulation as a tool for analysing error in anaesthesia. Staff involved in research include clinicians, scientists, research coordinators and postgraduate students.
Some of our research interests and projects include:
- Airway management
- Burns anaesthesia
- Clinical value of novel drugs within cardiac surgery (notably bivalirudin as an alternative to heparin for cardiopulmonary bypass and clevidipine as an alternative to nitroglycerine for blood pressure control during cardiac surgery)
- Cognitive impairment in elderly patients following anaesthesia and surgery
- EEG and sleep modelling
- Emergence delirium
- Emergency surgical airways
- Human factors
- Improvement of neuro-cognitive outcome after cardiac surgery
- Incident monitoring within anaesthesia
- Intra-operative hypothermia
- Mechanisms of anaesthesia
- Medical education in anaesthesiology
- Microbial and particulate contamination of IV drugs during their administration in anaesthesia
- Novel ketamine analogues
- Outcomes research in elderly patients
- Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of analgesic drugs in children and neonates
- Prevention of drug administration error in anaesthesia and simulation as a tool for error research
- Sleep disorders in the New Zealand blind population
- Teamwork in perioperative teams and effect on patient outcomes
- The circadian variation of anaesthetic drug action
- The clinical implications of fatigue and circadian disruption to clinicians and patients
- The implications of automated record keeping within anaesthesia
- WHO Safe Surgical Checklist
- Data mining of anaesthetic and medical records
- Mathematical modelling of physiological systems
- Circadian clock and the microbiome
- Anaesthesia, aging and the circadian clock
- Development of the circadian clock
If you are interested in conducting a research project or completing your PhD with us, please contact the department's Postgraduate Adviser Dr Guy Warman at g.warman@auckland.ac.nz or Dr James Cheeseman at j.cheeseman@auckland.ac.nz.