It’s not every day you meet a radiologist who began their career in surgical training and spent over a decade as an Emergency Medicine physician. But for Dr. Meredith Thomas, this rich and varied clinical journey is the foundation of her expertise in ED and Trauma imaging.
A passionate educator and a distinguished leader, Dr. Thomas has held numerous senior roles within RANZCR, earned two Master's degrees in Health Administration and Health Professions Education, and holds the position of Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Adelaide.
We are proud to have her as a key member of Everlight’s Medical Leadership Council (MLC) and our new Clinical Director. We sat down with Dr. Thomas to learn more about her incredible career, why she chose to work with Everlight, and her vision for advancing patient care, clinical governance, and radiologist training in 2025 and beyond.
Inside the MLC: Dr Meredith Thomas
"I am blessed to have had a varied medical career - after several years of surgical training I moved to Emergency Medicine and worked as an ED physician for more than a decade before starting radiology training in my 30s. It was inevitable that I would end up with an ED and Trauma Subspecialty focus, and I have been a Unit Head of ED and Trauma imaging for many years at the tertiary teaching hospital where I used to work in ED. This focus led me to be one of the founding Executive Members of the Australian and New Zealand Emergency Radiology Group.
I have a passion for education, both my own, and the education of other health workers. Having obtained FRANZCR I was keen to contribute back and I have been privileged to hold many educational roles and leadership positions within RANZCR over many years, from local Director of Training and Branch Education Officer, to Chair of the SA Branch and various committees, Faculty Councillor, and ultimately Chief Censor. In order to ensure I had the necessary skills for these roles I completed Master’s degrees in both Health Administration and Health Professions Education along the way. Recently I have focused more on contributing to undergraduate medical training, and I hold a Clinical Associate Professor position at the University of Adelaide.
I have worked for Everlight since 2017; I thought it would be a good fit for me, with its focus on Emergency and Trauma imaging, but with access to a broader range of routine work to maintain and broaden my skills, and with a commitment to continuing education through everlearning. I thought I could fit it around my other work and professional commitments, and the ability to be mobile was appealing. I have mostly worked part time but took a year off from my public hospital role in 2024 and worked fulltime, including from interstate and overseas.
I am always open to opportunities to broaden my professional experiences, and I was privileged to be appointed an Everlight Clinical Director early 2024, having previously held a role as Clinical Lead Mentoring. I am primarily involved in Clinical Governance: quality and assurance, peer review, responding to client feedback, formal and medicolegal responses, as well as having a continued role in recruitment and mentoring. I also enjoy supporting Everlearning activities including participating in mock OSCER examinations for the ANZ trainees.
Every year brings excitement and challenges, particularly working within such a dynamic and fast-growing business, and our vision and values provide a framework to think about priorities in 2025.
Patients first
Teleradiology is now ubiquitous; every radiologist graduating will work in teleradiology in one capacity or another - either intra-organisational or extra-organisation via teleradiology providers such as Everlight. Teleradiology companies are now seen as vital contributors to provision of global diagnostic imaging services, addressing the imbalance of supply and demand, both geographic across rural and regional areas, as well as temporal across the overnight and afterhours time zones. The MLCs have an important role in considering how best we can work in partnership with sites to improve service provision and patient care at a time of increasing workload and workforce constraints.
Think for tomorrow
I’m excited to explore opportunities for involvement in radiology training. We have radiologists with diverse skills - from new graduates with a keen understanding of the current curriculum requirements, to older radiologists with advanced subspecialty knowledge. Technology has enabled remote learning, and I think we have a greater role to play in medical education going forward - not only via everlearning lectures, but also potentially in targeted trainee education, training network partnerships, trainee supervision and rotations and fellowship training.
Together we grow
Connection is key, and this can be difficult in a remote working environment. Most of us thrive personally and professionally by developing relationships. While there are opportunities to connect, within the offices, through the various everlearning, Clinical Governance and other forums, I would like to consider other ways of supporting our radiologists through smaller special interest groups and interesting case discussions.
I’m also interested to better exploring radiologists’ motivation for working for Everlight, how we can better support our current radiologists and attract new radiologists, while ensuring we balance flexibility with a stable workforce.
Courage over comfort
We have an industry leading internal quality and assurance peer review program at Everlight, and relationships with sites that enable open site feedback. This is primarily for educational purposes, allowing us to monitor and continually improve not only individual performance but our performance overall. I would like to better educate our radiologists about the purpose of the peer review process so that it is not seen as threatening or punitive, rather as an opportunity to improve practice.
Embrace accountability
We don’t always get things right, and we need to ensure that we have open channels for feedback, internal and external, and frameworks to address issues raised. Connection, communication and transparency are my accountability priorities in 2025."
