I am a consultant HPB and liver transplant surgeon in Birmingham and have worked on the unit since 1996.
I ‘fell’ into liver transplantation by accident having spent my research time working within pancreatic disease I thought that this was where my heart lay. In Birmingham all of the pancreatic work was carried out on the Liver Unit and so for my first year back in clinical work I asked to be sent there and the rest as they say is history! There are few other branches of medicine where your actions can convert a very sick looking patient into a well, ‘normal’ person so quickly. Since becoming a consultant on the unit in 2002 I have developed a passionate interest in the lack of organ donors and spent many months during 2005/06 sending long letters to MPs, medical societies and associations without too much joy at first and then in late 2006 some of the recipients of my letters at the Department of Health agreed to set up an Organ Donation Task Force and I was asked to be a member. I am hopeful that the published reports are the first ‘green shoots’ of a recovery to return the UK back to near the top of the charts of organ donation across the World.
I have two sons although they are growing up now and in my spare time I will either be found lying on a beach or walking the coastal path in North Cornwall where I used to go on holiday with my parents and have been returning to regularly ever since.
