Bernhard is the Director of the Department of Anesthesia, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne, and Clinical Associate Researcher at the Cancer & Neural-Immune Research Laboratory, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Australia.

Bernhard’s research interests have improved the understanding of perioperative factors that contribute to complications following major surgery—with strategies for enhanced risk stratification (including measuring functional capacity with cardiopulmonary exercise testing) and preoperative optimization (including prehabilitation with exercise therapy) to reduce complications after surgery. Specific to the field of onco-anaesthesia, Bernhard’s research collaborative investigates the interaction of perioperative adrenergic-inflammatory response and anaesthetic technique on tumorprogression signaling on the potential long-term postoperative complication— cancer recurrence