Meet the Directors

Professor O James Garden leads the development of surgical distance learning programmes resulting from the collaboration between the University of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He currently serves as Programme Founder of the MSc in Surgical Sciences, the MSc in Primary Care Ophthalmology and the ChM courses in General Surgery, Urology, Trauma & Orthopaedics, Vascular & Endovascular and Clinical Ophthalmology.

He was appointed Regius Professor of Clinical Surgery at the University of Edinburgh in 2000 and is a graduate of the University of Edinburgh but undertook his postgraduate training as a hepatobiliary, pancreatic and liver transplant surgeon in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Paris. He is a well established figure in national and international surgery and is past president of the Association of Upper GI Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, Chairman of the British Journal of Surgery Society, Immediate past President of the International Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association (IHPBA) and Secretary of the James IV Association of Surgeons (Europe). Professor Garden was awarded by The Duke of Edinburgh with a Chancellor's Award for Teaching at the University of Edinburgh in 2010 for his work on surgical distance learning.

He has written extensively with some 270 research and clinical articles to his name and he has authored or edited 13 surgical textbooks. He is Editor-in-Chief of HPB, the official journal if the IHPBA, past Associate Editor of the World Journal of Surgery and currently serves on six editorial boards.  He is an honorary member of seven international societies and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. He was appointed Surgeon to the Queen in Scotland in 2004 and was made Commander of the British Empire in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list in 2014.

He has strong interests in surgical training and education. He believes that the Online Surgery Masters represents a valuable means of supporting surgical trainees in their personal and professional development as they work towards the fellowship.

Programme Director, Professor Steve Wigmore was appointed Professor of Transplantation Surgery at the University of Edinburgh in 2007. He graduated in Medicine at King’s College, University of London and worked at King’s College Hospital and The Royal Free Hospital before commencing basic surgical training in Edinburgh in 1991. He was a Smith & Nephew Foundation and Wilkie Scholar before taking up a lectureship in clinical surgery in 1996. He trained in surgery with Sir David Carter and Professor James Garden developing an interest in HPB surgery and Transplantation. He worked as a Post Doctoral Scholar at the University of California San Francisco holding a UICC Yamagiwa Yoshida Fellowship. He returned to Edinburgh after being awarded a Wellcome Trust Advanced Fellowship, which coincided with his appointment as Senior lecturer and Hon Consultant Surgeon at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. He was appointed to the Chair of Transplantation Surgery at the Birmingham Liver Unit in 2005 returning to Edinburgh in 2007 to his current post.

He has published widely in surgical specialities particularly focusing on the fields of organ pre-conditioning and liver surgery. He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and reviews research grants for national and international funding agencies. He is currently an Associate Editor of the journal HPB the official journal of the IHPBA. He is a former Associate Editor of the World Journal of Surgery and serves on the Editorial boards of the British Journal of Surgery and Transplantation among other journals.

He is a principal investigator in the MRC Centre for Inflammation Research with laboratories in the Queens Medical Research Institute and maintains an active research group in the fields of experimental and clinical liver surgery and transplantation. He is currently Clinical Director for General Surgery and Transplantation Services at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.

He has an active interest in postgraduate education and has been involved in the ESSQ programme since its inception. He has been involved in the development and assessment particularly of years two and three and has been Year 3 Director for the past 4 years.

Born and educated in Belfast, Ms Paisley attended Oxford University Medical School, qualifying in 1993. She then had house jobs in Oxford and Gloucester, followed by Accident and Emergency in Northampton and Anatomy Demonstrating at Guy's Hospital, London.

Upper GI Surgical Fellow at St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne for one year from February 2005. Basic and higher surgical training carried out in South East Scotland, based primarily at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Doctor of Medicine in Assessment of Basic Surgical Trainees awarded from Oxford University in 2003. Ms Paisley was appointed as Consultant General & Upper GI Surgeon at the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh in January 2007.

Ms Paisley’s main clinical interests lie in the management of benign and malignant oesophagogastric disease, together with emergency general surgery.

Mr Lamb was appointed as a consultant in 2008 with subspecialist interests in oesophagogastric and minimally invasive surgery. He has an active interest in undergraduate teaching and surgical training.

Mr Lamb’s main research interest is oesophagogastric cancer, and during his training he completed an MD at the Northern Oesophagogastric Unit, Newcastle, on sentinel node mapping in oesophageal cancer. He completed his higher surgical training in the Northern Deanery followed by an oesophagogastric fellowship in 2007/8 at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, Australia.

Damian Mole’s clinical focus is on the surgical management of benign and malignant disorders of the liver, pancreas and bile ducts. In addition to contributing to the tertiary referral HPB specialist team at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, he periodically leads the Emergency General Surgery receiving team and manages common elective general surgical conditions. Damian trained in Birmingham, London, Belfast and the USA prior to moving to Edinburgh in 2006.

Damian’s research is driven by a vision to produce innovative solutions to difficult surgical problems and challenging diseases. His research strategy is based on a critical questioning approach, disease mechanism evaluation and seeking out and building the best teams to discover and deliver these solutions. His current specific challenges are centred on mechanism evaluation and therapies for multiple organ dysfunction triggered by severe acute pancreatitis, and on harnessing the power of regeneration for tissue restitution.

Damian is a Developing Principal Investigator in the MRC Centre for Inflammation Research, University of Edinburgh. He is a graduate of the Health Foundation Leadership Training Program.

Mr Harrison is a consultant surgeon at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and a Senior Lecturer in General Surgery at the University of Edinburgh. As well as his clinical practice, he is interested in science and statistics. Mr Harrison did his undergraduate medical training at the University of Glasgow and higher surgical training in Edinburgh, during which he was President of the Association of Surgeons in Training, a role which saw him develop his interest in the education and training of young surgeons. He completed a fellowship in liver transplantation and hepatobiliary surgery in Groningen, the Netherlands.

Mr Harrison is a committed clinician-scientist and performs laboratory research aiming for rapid progression to first-in-human trials of promising therapies. His research group are investigating novel agents which reduce organ damage in transplantation. He is the recipient of MRC (Medical Research Council) and Academy of Medical Sciences grants for his continued work in this area. He also has a keen interest in outcomes after surgery and is Principal Investigator on a European collaborative trial examining outcomes after donation after cardiac death liver transplantation and is involved in a number of ‘big data’ projects in collaboration with Healthcare Improvement Scotland and NHS Scotland Information Services Division.

Mr Deans is a Consultant General and Upper Gastrointestinal Surgeon at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and a part-time Senior Lecturer with the University of Edinburgh. Mr Deans completed his undergraduate medical training at the University of Edinburgh and undertook his basic surgical rotation in Cambridge and his higher surgical training in South-East Scotland. He spent some time as a Clinical Lecturer at Edinburgh University and undertook research towards a higher degree. Mr Deans spent a year at the National University Hospital in Singapore on an Upper Gastrointestinal Surgical Fellowship. Mr Deans’ clinical interests lie in the management of benign and malignant oesophago-gastric disease, minimally invasive surgery, hernia surgery and emergency surgery. He has an active interest in teaching and measuring surgical quality and is the Chair of the Quality Improvement Team for General Surgery. Mr Deans also maintains a strong research interest, mainly relating to the role of inflammation in cancer and enhanced recovery following surgery.

Mr Matthew Moran has been a Year Director and now joint programme director of the ChM in Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery since it’s inception. The ChM should provide a high quality, rigorous and interactive learning experience that is valuable for training surgeons as they progress towards their fellowship exam and then independent practice.

He was appointed as a Consultant Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgeon in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery in Edinburgh in 2009. Mr Moran also holds an Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturers position at the University of Edinburgh. He attended medical school at the University of St Andrews and then the University of Oxford before completing residency training in Manchester, Edinburgh and Sydney. His current Specialist interests include Trauma Surgery, Lower Limb Arthroplasty and Bone and Soft Tissue Sarcoma surgery, forming part of the Scottish Sarcoma Network. 

Mr Moran is the organizer of the South East Scotland teaching programme for specialty trainees. He is a Course Director for Advanced Trauma Life Support, running an annual course at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh. He has lectured widely at National and International meetings on subjects of his specialist interest. Mr Moran is a member of the British Orthopaedic Association, British Hip Society and the British Orthopaedic Oncology Society. He is actively involved in research within the department and is leading and contributing to a number of ongoing projects including several randomized clinical trials. He is widely published.

Mr McKinley has been involved with the surgical distance learning programs since the ESSQ was started in 2007. He helped to set up and run the ChM in Orthopaedics and is now the Program Director.

A Dundee graduate, he undertook his post-graduate surgical and orthopaedic training in Edinburgh. He specialized in Foot and Ankle surgery and was appointed as a consultant in Edinburgh in 2007 after a year Fellowship in Melbourne.
 

CJ Shukla is a Urologist who offers subspecialist management of basic and complex men’s health conditions and also maintains his general urology interest by offering assessment and treatment of common urological conditions.  He qualified  with distinctions from Guys and St Thomas’ hospitals London, and completed his basic surgical training in Norwich. He then furthered his research interest and obtained a PhD from the University of East Anglia by researching into the molecular pathology of prostate cancer.  

During his higher surgical training in the field of Urology in the Eastern Deanery (which includes Cambridge and Norwich), Mr Shukla completed the prestigious and competitively sought UCLH (University College London Hospitals) fellowship in Andrology. He furthered this experience and interest with a further fellowship/mentorship type programme in Edinburgh in the fields of andrology and male reconstructive procedures.

Currently, he offers management of complex andrology and male genito-urethral reconstructive conditions including cancers and male infertility. In addition to being the year 1 director of the ChM programme in urology, he is an examiner for the FRCS (Urol), and an Associate editor for the BJUI Knowledge platform (andrology section).

Tobias Klatte is a Consultant Urologist at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. He graduated with a basic medical degree from the University of Magdeburg in Germany.  In 2007, he obtained a doctoral degree (Dr. med.) with a thesis on perioperative immunomodulation in renal cell carcinoma. Following his medical studies, he worked for two years as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Urology of the University of California-Los Angeles, where he acquired knowledge in basic and translational urologic oncology research. Tobias then relocated to Europe and underwent specialty training in urology at the Medical University of Vienna. Upon completion, he joined the faculty of the department and was promoted to the rank of an assistant professor. He transitioned to associate professor in 2014 and continued to work at this institution until 2017, when he moved to Cambridge.

His research focuses on clinical and translational urologic oncology research with a particular focus on kidney cancer and bladder cancer. In 2012, Tobias received the habilitation degree and was appointed as Privatdozent in urology at the Medical University of Vienna (senior lecturer). In central Europe, the habilitation degree is a required formal qualification to independently teach and examine at the university level. To date, he has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, with several publications in high-impact factor journals. He is on the editorial board of several scientific journals and was an Associate Editor of “European Urology Focus”.

Tobias has been a tutor on the ESSQ Programme since 2016.

Mr Tambyraja undertook his Vascular training in Edinburgh and Endovascular training in Arizona and Leicester. 

He was appointed as a Consultant Vascular Surgeon in Aberdeen in 2012. 

He has an ongoing interest in clinical research and medical education. His teaching expertise has been recognised through Surgical Teacher of the Month awards from the department of Clinical Surgery at Edinburgh University.

After my undergraduate training and Basic Surgical Training in Edinburgh, I spent two years in Birmingham undertaking research looking at coagulation changes in patients with claudication.  This led to the award of an MD, and Higher Surgical Training in General and Vascular Surgery back in Edinburgh and South East Scotland.  I supplemented my training with a year's fellowship in Sydney to gain further experience in endovascular techniques.  In October 2009 I was appointed as a Consultant Vascular Surgeon at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, and Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh.  

I am involved in all aspects of Vascular Surgery, but have particular interests in endovascular surgery, surgery for thoraco-abdominal aneurysms and vascular access for haemodialysis.

I am Professor of Clinical Ophthalmology at the University of Edinburgh and honorary ophthalmic surgeon with NHS Lothian at Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion in Edinburgh.  I have been a Consultant Ophthalmologist since 1991 after training posts in Birmingham, Plymouth, London, Edinburgh and Singapore.  I have been involved in postgraduate training, teaching and examining for the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and the Royal College of Ophthalmologists and external assessor for examinations boards for Glasgow Caledonian University (BSc Optometry), University of Manchester (MSc Investigative Ophthalmology and Vision Science) and UCL (MSc Clinical Ophthalmology).  I have supervised MSc, MD and PhD students in a range of basic science and clinical ophthalmology projects and am familiar with the challenges of gaining postgraduate education, passing professional examinations and acquiring research experience whist holding down a full-time job!  Our distance learning programmes have been designed with this in mind and allow students to enhance both their learning and professional profile ultimately for the benefit of patients with eye disease.

Roshini Sanders is currently honorary clinical senior lecturer at the University of Edinburgh.  She is a graduate of Glasgow University and completed her ophthalmology training in Glasgow, Dundee and London to take up a consultant ophthalmology position with special interest in glaucoma at NHS Fife's Queen Margaret Hospital, Dunfermline.

She has an established interest in postgraduate education.  She was chair and founder member of the Scottish Glaucoma Club in 2004 and has organised the annual Scottish Glaucoma Symposium at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh since 1999.  She is also co-founding member of the annual glaucoma surgery wetlab that has taken place since 2008.  She is examiner with the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and Royal College of Surgeons and Physicians Glasgow.

Her main areas of research are glaucoma, cataract and electronic communication and in 2012 she was appointed Research Speciality Lead for Ophthalmology in Scotland by the Chief Scientist Office, Edinburgh.  She currently chairs SIGN guidelines for glaucoma in Scotland.

Her pioneering work in clinical electronic communications led to the Scotland wide Eyecare Integration Project of which she is current Chair.  This project is set to electronically connect community optometry to hospital ophthalmology departments.  This enables clinical digital image transfer for referral and education purposes.  For this work she was given the Royal College of Ophthalmologists Award for Innovation in 2010 (London).

Donald Cameron is an honorary clinical senior lecturer with the University of Edinburgh's College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine and the optometry lead for this Master's programme in his capacity as national programme director for optometry with NHS Education for Scotland.

Donald Cameron qualified as an optometrist in 1976 and worked in his own independent optometry practice for 35 years, specialising in medical contact lenses and medical retinal disease.  During this time he was also a sessional clinical optometrist at Edinburgh's Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion (PAEP), specialising in acute anterior segment disease, medical retinal disease and fundus imaging. Donald holds the College of Optometrists' Diploma in Independent Therapeutic Prescribing, specialising in Glaucoma and Primary Care Optometry.  This Common Final Assessment case-based examination grants the successful candidate the right to prescribe for any disease of the eye or adnexa.  He served from 2007-2009 as Chairman of the Investigation Committee of the General Optical Council (GOC), the profession's UK regulatory body, and was closely involved in reviewing Fitness to Practise cases.

In 2009, he ws appointed as one of two national programme Directors (Optometry) by NHS Education for Scotland (NES), along with his colleague Dr Janet Pooley, to lead on the development of a Scottish Government funded, structured postgraduate training programme for the Optometry profession with the aim of improving standards of postgraduate optometric education in Scotland.  As part of NES Optometry's impressive programme of work, Donald established the first Optometric Teach and Treat Clinic in the UK in Edinburgh to enable community Optometrists to manage eye disease in NHS patients under ophthalmological supervision.  This training clinic, the Lothian Optometric Teach and Treat Clinic (LOTT), opened its doors to patients in 2010 and is managed for NES by NHS Lothian.  Donald championed the development of the MSc in Primary Care Ophthalmology and currently serves as the MSc Programme Team's Co-Director (Optometry), representing NHS Education for Scotland's interests and investment in this postgraduate degree programme.

Donald has lectured extensively around the world in a variety of clinical topics and his special areas of interest are medical contact lens works, independent prescribing and retinal imaging.  In 2008 he was awarded honorary membership of Association of Optometrists for services to Optometry.  In 2011 he was awarded Honorary Life Fellowship of the College of Optometrists and in 2012 was awarded Honorary Life Fellowship of the Association of British Dispensing Opticians.

Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and Director of Education & Research at the STRATUS Center for Medical Simulation, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Boston.

Dr. Yule is a leading academic psychologist and internationally recognized for his research on non-technical skills and patient safety in surgery. Most notably, he was one of the pioneers of the ‘Non-Technical Skills for Surgeons’ (NOTSS) behavior observation system, which is now being implemented for surgical education and research in North America, Europe, Australia, Africa and Asia. Dr. Yule has authored several seminal manuscripts on non-technical skills, edited the first surgical textbook on the topic, and leads a research laboratory at Harvard dedicated to advancing the field of behavioral science. His current research focuses on examining the relationship between non-technical skills and patient outcomes, developing coaching for surgeons and surgical teams, implementing biomarkers of team performance, and investigating video-based assessments of surgical team behavior. He also leads a NASA-funded research program to support astronaut crews in management of medical events on deep space missions. He is vice chair of the American College of Surgeons Committee on Non-Technical Skills and past chair of the Education Committee of the Association for Academic Surgery.

Consultant General Surgeon at the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh; Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh; and Chairman of Patient Safety Board at the RCSEd @spbsurgery.

Mr Simon Paterson-Brown is an Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer the University of Edinburgh Although originally appointed as a Consultant General Surgeon with a particular interest in upper-gastrointestinal surgery to the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh in January 1994, he has pursued a strong commitment to patient safety throughout his career. He has delivered postgraduate educational programmes locally and abroad through the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd) including highly successful non-technical skills (NOTSS) workshops. He is a past chairman of the RCSEd Patient Safety Board and is past President of AUGIS (Association of Upper GI Surgeons of UK and Ireland). He previously sat on the RCSEd’s Education Committee and the Specialty Advisory Group for General Surgery.

Visiting Professor of Surgery - University of Edinburgh, Associate Professor, Department of Surgery; Section of Trauma and Critical Care, Stanford University Medical Center. 

Thomas Weiser is an associate professor in the Department of Surgery at Stanford University Medical Center, where he practices general and emergency surgery and surgical intensive care. He is on sabbatical at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh as a Visiting Professor. His research focuses on quality and safety of surgical care, and strategies for improving the safety and reliability of surgical delivery in resource poor settings. From 2006-2009 he worked with the World Health Organization’s Safe Surgery Saves Lives program to quantify the global volume of surgery and create, implement, evaluate, and promote the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist. He has been involved in the Disease Control Priorities Project, a World Bank initiative that evaluates the cost effectiveness of health interventions, and the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery. He is a trustee of Lifebox (www.lifebox.org), a charity devoted to improving surgical safety worldwide, and leads its Clean Cut program, a multinational effort to improve surgical safety and prevent surgical infections.