Sarah Burgess

Sarah grew up in the West Country and qualified from the University of Cambridge in 2012.  She decided that critical care was for her after watching a registrar do an RSI on a general medical ward and deciding this was the coolest thing ever! She has worked in Lancashire, Cambridgeshire, the West Midlands and London where she currently works as dual trainee in anaesthesia and ICM (she no longer approves of intubating patients on medical wards...)  She was elected to the ICS Trainee Advisory Group in late 2020, where she works for the education team.

Ser-Ling Chua

Dr Chua is a consultant dermatologist based at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, University Hospitals Birmingham. She has an interest in medical dermatology including severe cutaneous drug reactions and skin conditions associated with HIV. She is a current member of the European Reference Network group for severe cutaneous drug reactions (ToxiTEN), and British Association of Dermatologists’ guidelines development groups on Steven-Johnson syndrome / toxic epidermal necrolysis (SJS/TEN) in adults and prurigo nodularis. She also serves as chair of the British Association of Dermatologists’ therapy and guidelines sub-committee and associate editor of Skin Health and Disease. She trained in medicine in London, dermatology in Nottingham and completed a research fellowship in Mbarara, Uganda and San Francisco, California, United States of America.

Alison Evans

I am the lead Consultant in Diabetes & Endocrinology in Gloucestershire. My work is mainly based at Cheltenham General Hospital but I also run clinics at Cirencester, North Cotswolds, Tewkesbury as well as in Cheltenham; I rotate with my colleagues to cover our speciality in patient bed base at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital.

I lead on pituitary and neuroendocrine work (the fun stuff) for the trust in addition the more usual work in diabetes, endocrinology and general medicine. I still having the privilege (!) of doing on calls for acute medicine.

A lot of the work we do within the speciality is with a view to preventing acute admissions by educating our patients to self manage – this often means patients know more than the doctors, particularly with some of the uncommon endocrine conditions.

Alice Gray

Alice graduated from medical school at the University of Leicester in 2013 and after her foundation training went on to do an MSc in Palliative Care at King's College London. She is now a Specialist Registrar in both Palliative Medicine and General Medicine and based in the West Midlands. 

She is enthusiastic about the development of international Palliative Care, having spent some time working in Uganda, Gaza and is taking an OOPE in 2024 to work at Green Pastures hospital in Nepal. 

When not working, Alice loves to cycle and has discovered the slower art of paddle boarding.

Pip Nicolson

Pip is consultant haematologist at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. He has a clinical interest in haemostasis, thrombosis and immunohaematology. He is also an associate professor at the University of Birmingham. His laboratory research interests include the role of platelets in venous thrombosis and thromboinflammation. 

Gemma Talling

UK

Gemma moved from her native Somerset to London to study medicine at Imperial College, graduating in 2006. Following foundation training in Surrey she moved back to the south west for anaesthesia then ICM training in Severn Deanery.  Based in Gloucestershire, she enjoyed a prolonged break from training to raise her three children and working as an SAS Anaesthetist. 

The post Covid era has seen her return to training in ITU in the West Midlands. Any spare time she has is spent with her family enjoying the Cotswold countryside, swimming at the local lido and relaxing with friends and family. 

Her main interest is in medical education so she is particularly pleased to be involved in organising the Medicine for Intensive Care Study days in 2023.

Christopher Thompson

• Born in Birmingham, UK
• Studied Medicine and graduated from University of Dundee 1996
• Trained in West Midlands Deanery
• Consultant in Renal and Intensive Care Medicine at University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS trust (UHNM) since 2007

He has been Clinical Lead for the adult critical care unit at UHNM from 2014-2018. During this time, he led QI work with significant service improvements leading to CQC rating for adult critical care services of “Outstanding”. He has a particular interest in Quality improvement and clinical governance. Undertook a RCPE Quality governance Collaborative Fellowship in 2021/22. He is now Clinical lead for Quality Improvement at UHNM.

Participated as an NCEPOD investigator for AKI report “Adding insult to injury” (2009) and acted as Principle investigator on The Genetic Contribution to Drug induced renal injury: DIRECT study (2014); ACCUPASS study (2015) and other non-renal NIHR studies.

He is a keen open water swimmer and kayaker.

Theofano Tikka

Theofano Tikka is a consultant ENT - Head and neck/Thyroid surgeon at Cambridge University Hospital Addenbrooke’s . Theofano studied medicine at the University of Patra in Greece, she has an MSc in Medical Statistics from Oxford Brooke’s University, UK, a master’s degree in medical education from Cardiff University, UK and a PhD in Public Health and Health Policy from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK. She completed her foundation, core and higher surgical training in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery in the West Midlands and West of Scotland deaneries, followed by an advanced head and neck surgical oncology fellowship in robotics and minimally invasive techniques at the Royal Marsden hospital, London. She has authored over 50 peer-reviewed papers and many book chapters. She has a special interest in improving early head and neck cancer diagnosis by developing new diagnostic algorithms, which was the topic of her PhD thesis. She is also a co-investigator in the NIHR-funded EVEREST-HN trial investigating the development of a patient-reported symptom-based risk stratification system for suspected head and neck cancer referrals.