Speakers
Dr Andrew Breen
Professor Shondipon Laha
Dr Ned (Edward) Gilbert-Kawai
Dr Ema Swingwood OBE
Dr Parjam (PJ) Zolfaghari
Plenary
Andy is a consultant in ICM working in Leeds Teaching Hospitals, having been appointed in 2005. He is Clinical Director for Adult Critical Care in Leeds, and an elected the Intensive Care Society's Honorary Secretary. He graduated in Liverpool in 1995, where he completed his clinical training in anaesthesia and intensive care medicine.
Andy has strong interest in point-of-care ultrasound, having been a founding member of the FICE committee, current member of the FUSIC committee and co-author of a number of POCUS accreditation programmes. Other interests include ethical decision making and advance care planning, the science of quality improvement and IV fluids education.
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www.ics.ac.uk
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@shond3
Ned Gilbert-Kawai is a Consultant in Critical Care Medicine & Anaesthesia at The Royal Liverpool University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Ned completed his PhD at University College London on the effect of hypoxia on microcirculation and then undertook a Masters in Genomic Medicine at Imperial College London. He was the Chief Scientific Officer for the Xtreme Everest 2 expedition (UCL Centre for Altitude, Space and Extreme Environment (CASE) Medicine, 2013), and has since maintained an interest in both cardiovascular physiology and genomic medicine. He is an associate editor of the Journal of Intensive Care Society and an examiner at the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine Exams.
Ema is a Consultant Therapist (Physiotherapist by background) in Critical Care at University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust. Her area of clinical expertise and interest is ventilation, weaning and complex airway clearance.
Having completed the Advanced Cardiorespiratory Physiotherapy Msc programme at University College London (UCL) in 2012, Ema has continued her research focusing on the use of Mechanical Insufflation-Exsufflation (MI-E) and other cough augmentation strategies. Her current PhD work focuses on the use of MI-E in the intubated population which is funded through the NIHR Clinical Academic Research Fellowship pathway.
Extra-curricular activities include contributions to the Undergraduate Physiotherapy programme at the University of the West of England, and post-graduate teachings at University College London and Brunel University. She sits on the Intensive Care Society Physiotherapy Professional Advisory Group and Education Committee, the Equity, Diversity and Belonging Committee of the CSP, and ICUsteps support group network. She has been part of the multi-professional authorship for BTS/ICS documents related to Respiratory Support Units and Weaning Centres. Most recently, she is part of the NHSElect working group for the development of a Critical Care Capability Framework.
PJ was born in Iran and moved to the UK when he was 11 years old. He studied medicine at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ (UMDS) and after initially training to be a surgeon, he switched to anaesthesia and critical care medicine training in East London. He did his PhD with Mervyn Singer at UCL on mitochondrial dysfunction in sepsis and multiorgan failure before starting his consultant post at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, London. His interests are metabolic response in critical illness and trauma. His current main focus is his passion for teaching: he runs the Critical Care MSc at Queen Mary University London and is a senior lecturer in the Critical Care and Perioperative Medicine Research Group at QMUL. He is also one of the associate editors of BJA Education. He was Programme Director for three editions of SOA (2023 to 2025) and is very excited to bring education, research and debate to this multi-professional meeting, as well as great social events in the evenings (another one of his passions!).
Mike is a consultant in cardiothoracic anaesthesia, intensive care medicine and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). His clinical interests are around VV-ECMO, mechanical circulatory support, heart/lung transplantation and major cardiac surgical care. He is passionate about education and leads the local teaching programme as well as being a newly appointed FFICM Examiner.
He has been an Editor of Anaesthesia for eight years and has contributed more broadly through highlighting the importance of scientific dissemination in the research process. He enjoys running most days but was built for comfort, rather than speed.