Critical Care Airways

Gagandeep Panesar

Gagandeep is an ST7 Anaesthetic Trainee with specific interests in paediatrics, management of the difficult airway and the evolving field of robotic surgery. He has a strong affinity for education, delivering teaching across the curriculum, but particularly aimed towards the novice and core trainee. He is the trainee representative at his current university teaching hospital and is involved in the national recruitment of future anaesthetists. In the next 12 months, Gagandeep will be completing a fellowship in paediatric anaesthesia at Birmingham Children’s Hospital.

Umair Ansari

Dr Umair Ansari is a Consultant Anaesthetist at University Hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire NHS Trust (UHCW) who graduated at the University of Southampton. He has an interest in medical education, patient safety and difficult airway management. He completed a fellowship in simulation and a Masters in patient safety and quality improvement at the University of Nottingham. His research interest includes use of ultrasound for airway management. He is involved with teaching of Medical Students at Warwick Medical School. He is an ATLS director at UHCW. His interests outside anaesthesia are in motorsport and he has been a Formula 1 doctor for the last 10 years at Silverstone, UK.

Jayanth Bhat

Dr Jayanth Bhat was trained in Respiratory medicine in Wales, Severn and West Midlands deaneries and joined University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire as Consultant in Respiratory Medicine in 2017. He has a special interest in Airways disease and currently lead for Community COPD service. He is a senior clinical faculty for Warwick Medical School having been a departmental lead for undergraduate medical education. His other clinical interests are bronchoscopy including endobronchial ultrasound and pleural procedures. He has served as faculty in national tracheostomy and bronchoscopy courses in West Midlands.

Rati Danha

Dr Rati Danha is a consultant anaesthetist at University Hospitals Coventry &Warwickshire NHS Trust.  She has a special interest in anaesthesia for head and neck surgery and paediatric anaesthesia. She has participated in a lot of airway-related research and has been part of the Faculty at Coventry Airway Courses as well as AAGBI conferences. Rati is a Training Programme Director for ACCS at Health Education West Midlands.

Ehab Foda

Dr Ehab Foda is a consultant anaesthetist at Royal Derby Hospital since 2007. He graduated from Cairo University in 1994 and completed M.Sc. in anaesthesia. In the United Kingdom he was trained in West Midlands and Wales. His special interests include anaesthesia for major head & neck and spine surgery. His academic interests include medication education and has vast experience of supervising both undergraduate students and postgraduate trainees. He is a regular faculty at national DAS approved airway workshops and courses. He is ALS instructor on the Resuscitation Council advanced life support courses.

Carl Groves

Carl Groves is an ST7 dual trainee in Anaesthetics and Intensive Care. He has an interest in the management of the difficult airway and medical education. He is the current Airway Fellow at University Hospital, Coventry and the course lead for Coventry Bronchoscopy Course and faculty for several national clinical skills/ procedure courses. Carl is an examiner for Warwick Medical School and regularly teaches at Coventry Airway lab and FRCA exam preparation courses. He is actively involved in the teaching of colleagues and medical students as well as being a member of the organising committee for the Difficult Airway Society Annual Scientific Meeting in 2023.

Andy Higgs

Andy Higgs is a Consultant in Anaesthesia & Intensive Care Medicine in Warrington Hospitals, Cheshire, having trained in Liverpool, North West England and Melbourne, Australia. He has a long-standing interest in airway management, especially extubation and in the ICU. Andy was Clinical Director of ICU between 2005 and 2007 and joint Clinical Lead Anaesthesia/ICU from 2007 to 2011. He is a faculty member and contributor to the Aintree Difficult Airway Management course. He co-authored the Difficult Airway Society Extubation Guidelines (2012) and chairs the joint Royal College of Anaesthetists/Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine/DAS group, aiming to produce a guideline for Airway Management in the Critically Ill.

Fiona Kelly

Consultant ,

Dr Fiona Kelly, Consultant in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine, Royal United Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Bath

Fiona Kelly has been a consultant in Bath for 13 years. She has an interest in recovery from potentially traumatic events and has been working with Julie Highfield and her team to develop the TIM tool for the last 3 years. She is lead ICU consultant in Bath for staff wellbeing and is a member of the Association of Anaesthetists’ wellbeing working party.

Irfan Khan

Irfan is a specialty trainee in the Warwickshire School of Anaesthesia, currently undertaking an Airway Fellowship at University Hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire NHS Trust. He has a strong interest in medical education, having recently completed a year as an Education Fellow within the anaesthetics department at Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham. He is currently studying towards a Postgraduate Diploma in Health Professions Education; his clinical interests include head and neck anaesthesia, vascular and thoracic anaesthesia.

Peeyush Kumar

• Membership of Professional / National / Regional Bodies:
  Associate Clinical Professor (Honorary) University of Warwick (Warwick Medical School), Association of Anaesthetists (AAGBI) linkman for UHCW, UHCW Undergraduate Perioperative/Anaesthetic Lead for Warwick Medical School.
• Other Professional Details:
  Perioperative anaesthetic management of patients undergoing Upper GI/HPB, ENT and Gynae-oncology surgery with interest in management of difficult airway, teaching and training.

Cyprian Mendonca

Cyprian graduated from Mysore University, India in 1987 and completed postgraduate training in Anaesthesia from Bangalore University in 1992. In the UK, he undertook specialty training in Anaesthesia from Stoke, Warwickshire and Welsh Schools of Anaesthesia and was appointed as a consultant anaesthetist at University Hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire NHS Trust in 2001. His special interests include head & neck anaesthesia, airway management, neuroanaesthesia, human factors and medical education.

Ashok Nair

Ashok is a Consultant Anaesthetist in the West Midlands after completing his registrar training and research work in London. He is the site lead for the DAS Difficult Airway Database and an RCOA College Tutor for core and specialty trainees at Good Hope Hospital, a part of University Hospitals Birmingham.

His clinical interests include difficult airway management, TIVA, anaesthesia for major colorectal, cytoreductive and peritoneal surgery. He has a keen interest in education and simulation. He organises regular sim sessions incorporating elements of the new curriculum and anaesthetic emergencies for anaesthetic trainees. He is actively involved in research and has been the PI for several projects.

Charles Pairaudeau

Charles is a consultant anaesthetist at University Hospital Coventry. He graduated from Nottingham in 2008 and completed anaesthesia training and airway fellowship in the West Midlands. His clinical interests include emergency anaesthesia, difficult airways and anaesthesia for head and neck surgery. He also has an interest in medical education, is faculty member of core clinical education at Warwick Medical School and is regular faculty at national DAS approved airway workshops. He currently organises fibreoptic intubation training and airway training sessions at Coventry Airway lab. 

Rajneesh Sachdeva

Rajneesh Sachdeva is an anaesthetics consultant and airway lead at QEH in Birmingham. His areas of interest include head and neck anaesthesia, bariatric anaesthesia and regional anaesthesia.  He is also senior lecturer in the University of Birmingham in the department of inflammation and ageing and is currently studying for a PhD with the university as well as being actively involved in research at QEH.

Rajneesh actively participates in the teaching and training of colleagues and medical students and is co-chair for the Difficult Airway Society Annual  Scientific meeting to be hosted in Birmingham towards the end of this year. 

In addition to the above, Rajneesh is faculty for the MSc Regional Anaesthesia, University of East Anglia.

Suveer Singh

Professor Suveer Singh has been a Consultant in Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine at the Chelsea & Westminster NHS Foundation Trust, and Royal Brompton Hospitals in London since 2003. He is Professor of Practice in Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine at Imperial College London, and Director/Founder of the BRIC courses since 2015.

He is an experienced specialist in Respiratory Critical Care, severe acute respiratory failure (SARF), ventilation and general respiratory disorders. His clinical and research interests include early diagnostic markers for ventilator associated pneumonia and burns inhalation injury, bronchoscopy (EBUS and interventional), respiratory infection and post intensive care disorders.

Professor Singh has 25 years of consultant experience in respiratory medicine, bronchoscopy (basic, and advanced), cardiorespiratory, general and burns intensive care. He is involved in the current national ECMO service and follow up.

Christina Tourville

Dr Tourville is a Consultant Anaesthetist at UHCW with interests in Head and Neck Surgery and Neuroanaesthesia. During her training she completed an Airway Fellowship, which has given her extensive experience in difficult airway management.  She also has a passion for teaching and regularly teaches on life support, simulation and human factors courses.

Dilshad Valliani

Dr Dilshad Valliani is a Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine and Lead for Critical Care Outreach at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.   She is lead for Education and has a keen interest In-Situ Simulation and Burns Education.  She has been Co-Lead of the Bronchoscopy in Intensive Care (BrIC) Course since 2018 and is passionate about improving standards in the practice of Bronchoscopy in Critical Care.