Dr Rajani Surendar Bhat is an accomplished interventional pulmonologist and palliative medicine physician who completed her post-graduate education in the United States and has been practising in Bangalore since 2010. Dr Rajani acquired her MBBS degree from Lokmanya Tilak Medical College, University of Mumbai. After initial training at Tata Memorial Hospital and Research Centre, Mumbai, she went on to pursue her further studies with a residency in Internal Medicine at the Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Centre, New York. She subsequently finished a dual fellowship in Pulmonary disease and Critical Care medicine at the Montefiore Medical Centre, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York. Dr Rajani Bhat has been a consultant at leading hospitals in Bangalore in state-of-the-art interventional pulmonology departments.

Her areas of interest are:

Interventional pulmonology

Interstitial lung diseases

Pulmonary rehabilitation

Chronic breathlessness due to advanced organ failure, airway diseases and lung cancer.

Dr Rajani Bhat is an elected member of the Governing Council of the Indian Association of Bronchology and holds memberships to various national and international professional bodies in pulmonology, critical care and palliative medicine.

She is an expert in advanced diagnostic procedures like

• Endobronchial Ultrasound Guided Transbronchial Needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA)
• Transbronchial Cryobiopsy
• Medical Thoracoscopy as well as therapeutic procedures like
• Rigid bronchoscopy for management of hemoptysis, foreign body retrieval, critical airway obstruction, tumour debulking and airway stenting
• Placement of indwelling pleural catheters
• Rigid Thoracoscopy /pleuroscopy

Dr Rajani Bhat has completed the National Fellowship in Palliative Medicine from the Institute of Palliative Medicine, Calicut. She is one of a handful of physicians in India with the entire range of specialised qualification from outpatient medicine to interventional procedures in critically ill patients, as well as palliative medicine and end of life care. She brings a patient and family-centric evidence based approach to her clinical practice.

Dr Rajani Bhat has many publications in national and international journals to her credit. She has contributed as co-author to national medical guideline statements in pulmonology as well as palliative medicine. She has received awards for her research and is a part of the training faculty at national and international conferences in interventional pulmonology. She has a deep interest in public health and volunteers her spare time with non-profit organisations in the healthcare sector.