My day job is as a paediatric surgeon at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, UK. Major interests include surgical oncology, laparoscopy, oesophageal atresia, vascular access, and major trauma. Most of my academic successes were to do with persuading colleagues to standardise operations and procedures and then collecting the data together.

 

In addition, I was in the army and have served 3 tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as a general surgeon. The work in Camp Bastion led to much learning in both paediatric major trauma and Human Factors which has had a major impact on civilian paediatric trauma practice. There is a direct link between damage control surgery on the battlefield and our work on NEC. I still continue my interest in humanitarian surgery through the Save the Children, David Nott Foundation and the PACTS course.

 

Life outside work includes family (a wife, 3 children, a dog and a chicken) and running our local scout group.  My real passion is bread making which started when in Afghanistan. It lead to my most widely read publication the ‘Secret lives of the Bastion Bakers’ – Christmas BMJ 2014.