Consultant Respiratory Physician
PhD, MRCP, MBChB
Overview
Areas of expertise
Medico-Legal experience
Dr Fonseka is happy to be instructed by both Claimant and Defendant law firms
in personal injury and clinical negligence actions.
Clinical Practice & Experience
Dr Fonseka graduated from the University of Sheffield with a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery in 2005. She has since completed her PhD at the University of Bristol in 2019, on asbestos related pleural disease. Dr Fonseka undertook her foundation and core medical training in the South Yorkshire region. She did her specialist respiratory training in the same deanery from 2010. Since 2018, Dr Fonseka has been practising as a Consultant Respiratory Physician at the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust and an Honorary Clinical Lecturer at the University of Sheffield.
Clinical Interests
Dr Fonseka has a specialist interest in pleural disease and has sat on the British Thoracic Society national guideline committees for both mesothelioma and pleural disease. Her clinical interests include pleural infection, pleural effusions, mesothelioma, diffuse pleural thickening, pneumothorax, and lung cancer. Due to the nature of the sub-speciality she is heavily involved with pleural intervention such as local anaesthetic thoracoscopy, indwelling pleural catheters, intercostal chest drains, and diagnostic/therapeutic pleural aspirations.
Research Interests
Dr Fonseka’s research interests lay within pleural disease and mesothelioma, and the diagnosis and management of these conditions. Dr Fonseka has conducted successful clinical research trials recruiting patients from across the UK. During the years of 2014 to 2018, Dr Fonseka was a Clinical Research Fellow at the North Bristol NHS Trust undertaking a PhD in asbestos related pleural disease at the University of Bristol. Her work involved exploring the role of alternative diagnostic modalities in mesothelioma such as PET-CT and MRI scanning.
Summary of Publications
Dr Fonseka has published over 40 peer reviewed articles including 2 national
guidelines, in the field of pleural disease.
Teaching & Training
Dr Fonseka is currently an Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Sheffield. She has given multiple oral and poster presentations relating to her research, bot at National and International conferences. These include an oral presentation at the 2019 British Thoracic Society (BTS) Winter meeting on the results of the TARGET Trial, an oral presentation at the 2018 BTS Winter meeting on the role of MRI in characterizing equivocal pleural thickening on CT, a poster presentation at the 2014 American Thoracic Society meeting on the incidence and severity of chronic thromboembolic hypertension since the introduction of a pulmonary embolism clinic, a poster presentation at the 2014 International Mesothelioma Interest Group meeting on the role of dynamic contrast enhanced MRI in mesothelioma, and a poster presentation at the 2013 British Thoracic Oncology group meeting on evaluating the expedited referral pathway for lung cancer. Additionally, Dr Fonseka has been a thoracic ultrasound trainer at both British Thoracic Society and European Respiratory
Society US courses. She facilitated the Thoracic US course at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals in 2020. She has also been a chest drain placement station facilitator at the European Respiratory Society in 2019.
Prizes and Awards
NIHR RfPB grant for the TARGET trial – co-applicant
North Bristol Trust’s Springboard grant for a trial investigating the role of MRI in mesothelioma – co-applicant
Memberships of Professional Bodies & Learned Societies
Member of the British Thoracic Society (BTS) Mesothelioma Guideline group
Member of the British Thoracic Society (BTS) Pleural Disease Guideline group
Member of the BTS Pleural Disease Specialist Advisory Group
Contact Duneesha
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