Sonia Akrimi chairs the education committee of the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists, having previously served as a member (2020-2024). In this role, she collaboratively leads and supports multiple WFSA global education and research activities. She leads a partnership between the Royal College of Anaesthetists (UK) and the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons anaesthetic faculty, focusing on anaesthesia training programme development and fostering a support community for training program leads across sub-Saharan Africa. Having also served as a director of the Zambia Anaesthesia Development Program and a Founding Trustee of Global Anaesthesia Development Partnerships (2017-2024), Sonia demonstrates her dedication to advancing medical education and safe surgical care globally. Sonia is also a program lead for Inspire through Clinical Teaching, a multidisciplinary clinical teaching skills course established in low and middle-income countries. Currently pursuing a PhD in Medical Education, she holds a Masters in Clinical Education and practices as an anaesthetist in the UK.

Julia works in the Department of Haematology at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. She spent 2 years as a Research Fellow at Hamilton Civic Hospitals Research Centre, Ontario, Canada where she investigated the effect of hypersulphation of low molecular weight heparin on prothrombinase and intrinsic tenase, leading to a degree of MD, in 1999, with research findings published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. She held a Faculty position in the Department of Medicine at McMaster University as Assistant Professor from 2004 - 2008, and worked and taught within the Division of Hematology and Thrombosis.

Currently Julia is a lead examiner for the Fellowship of the Royal College of Pathologists. She completed a 6 year term of office as a member of the British Society for Haematology Haemostasis & Thrombosis Task Force, and has held positions as Co-Chair of the International Society for Thrombosis and Haemostasis Scientific Subcommittee on the Control of Anticoagulation, and a member of the International Society for Thrombosis and Haemostasis Education Committee. She also served as a member of the NICE VTE Diseases Guideline Update Committee, and the SIGN Guideline update on COVID-19 and thrombosis.

Since 2020, Julia has represented haematology as the specialty adviser to the Chief Medical Officer in Scotland, providing advice during the COVID-19 pandemic, and currently advising on matters relating to all aspects of clinical and laboratory haematology in Scotland.

Areas of research interest:

(i) peri-operative anticoagulation (collaboration with the PAUSE-2 Investigators, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada)

(ii) monitoring anticoagulation – lab-based assays, point-of-care devices

(iii) women's health : acquired and congenital bleeding in pregnancy : defining the period of hypercoagulability in the puerperium and at different stages of pregnancy

(iv) reversal of anticoagulation

Julia Anderson is a 4th year medical student at The University of Edinburgh. She intercalated in Anaesthesia, Critical Care, and Pain Medicine where she undertook research on Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome at the Institute of Regeneration and Repair, focusing on the genetic signature expressed in murine models using algorithm Meta-Analysis by Information Content (MAIC). Julia sits on the Scotland A Research Ethics Committee which aims to ensure adults with incapacity are protected in medical research.

Special interest and experience in developing and researching care programs for optimized multi-modal rehabilitation pathways in both elective and emergency surgery, specifically in hip fracture and emergency laparotomy patients. Extensive experience in ERAS pathways in elective surgery, mainly elective arthroplasty, and colorectal surgery. Research interest and focus on the interaction between perioperative perfusion and inflammation, and how these interact to disrupt recovery and induce postoperative complications. Specific research areas have been joint surgical-anesthesiological care perioperative and the establishment of emergency surgical pathways to influence rehabilitation and outcome. A main focus is optimizing perioperative perfusion, involving haemodynamic monitoring and the interactions between hypovolemia and vasoconstriction, which also includes research on the impact of anemia and the optimal use of transfusion therapy to guide resuscitation and hemodynamic optimization, mainly in emergency patients. This also involves research into perioperative inflammations, including modulation of perioperative stress, with specific interest in perioperative glucocorticoids, including research in both analgesic and cardiovascular effects of these, as well as organ function and delirium. Current research specifically involves the interaction between macro-circulatory monitoring and perfusion, and the impact of hypovolemia and anemia to induce haemodynamic incoherence, challenging conventional resuscitation algorithms both perioperatively and in the ICU.

My interests include neurocritical care, point of care ultrasound, and genderin medicine. I was chair of the Women in Intensive Care Medicine (WICM) group, a subcommittee of the FICM Career, Recruitment and Workforce Committee from 2017-2020, and stood down from this role to undertake a PhD at the Usher institute, University of Edinburgh to examine the drivers and effects of the gender balance within intensive care medicine in the UK. I am ICM lead for Autistic Doctors International, a peer support and advocacy group.

X: @RosieICM.

Katrina Bramley qualified from University of St. Andrews / The University of Manchester in 2001 with BSc and MBChB. Her formative years were spent as a physician in Nottingham then Australia where she was introduced to critical care. Her training in anaesthesia and critical care was based in the West of Scotland interspersed with London for an MSc in Epidemiology then advanced critical care. Her first consultant post was at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh where she was Clinical Lead for the Cardiothoracic Critical Care. At the Royal Brompton her clinical interests are providing high quality anaesthetic care for complex adult cardiac patients, cardiogenic shock and extracorporeal life support.

Anthony is a Consultant Thoracic surgeon in Edinburgh with a specialist interest in minimally invasive, chest wall and robotic surgery. He has recently set up the rib-fixation service at Edinburgh's new major trauma unit.

Julia Critchley is a Consultant Anaesthetist at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (RIE), with a subspecialty interest in Obstetric Anaesthesia. During her advanced training in obstetric anaesthesia in 2019 she joined the RIE’s obstetric airway management QI team and took on managing the obstetric intubation registry. In 2023 Julia published the article ‘Simple Steps towards improving safety in obstetric airway management: A QI project’ in the European Journal of Anaesthesia. Building on undergraduate honours in Epidemiology she has an enthusiasm for audit and QI projects involving large data sets. She balances her career with looking after her 4 children. Julia is an active community volunteer and has secured substantial lottery funding for local breastfeeding and perinatal mental health peer support projects.

Tim undertook a regional anaesthesia fellowship at Saint Michaels, Toronto, plus a 6 month period with Medecins Sans Frontieres treating war casualties before taking up a consultant post at The Royal London Hospital MTC. He was an integral part of the Trauma Anaesthetic Group, setting up a block room and promoting the use of RA in the trauma population. He has been involved in research in RA use in blunt chest trauma and POCUS. He is the director of the Regional Anaesthesia For Trauma (RAFT) course at Queen Mary University London.

After a circuitous route through training, she has a keen appreciation for the different paths careers can take and the importance of flexibility and welfare in education. Naomi was elected to the Trainee Committee of the Association of Anaesthetists and became its Chair in 2022. An advocate for equity, opportunity and wellbeing, her work led to being awarded the Anniversary Medal for significant contribution and service to the Association. Her ongoing work includes research into inequalities in procedural training among other projects. As a trained mentor, Naomi co-founded MentorScot.com, a mentoring network for anaesthetists in South East Scotland. Clinically her main interests lie in regional, obstetric and emergency anaesthesia.

My field of research is pharmacogenetics with an emphasis on malignant hyperthermia and butyrylcholinesterase. I have an interest in information technology, programmed a couple of iOS smartphone apps and have a diploma in bioinformatics from Oxford University. My clinical speciality is in obstetric anaesthesia. I am the past president of the Swiss Association of Obstetric Anaesthesia and have served two terms (6 years) in the committee of the Obstetric Anaesthetist's Association (OAA) in the UK. In malignant hyperthermia I am the director of the Swiss MH investigation center and the current chairman of the European MH Group (EMHG).

X: @girardDev

David Hall has extensive experience of critical care aeromedical transfer, most recently whilst deployed as part of the UK's humanitarian response to the 2023 Turkish earthquake. His subspecialty interests include critical care echocardiography, cardiogenic shock and regional anaesthesia. In 2023 he was appointed to the new role of Chief of Staff for UK military critical care.

Simon Heaney is the clinical lead for Neuroanaesthesia in the Dept of clinical Neurosciences in Edinburgh, and is an elected member of the RCOA Scottish Board. He has a particular interest in skull base anaesthesia and the perioperative management of the surgical patient with diabetes. Prior to medical school Simon completed a molecular genetics PhD, and BSc in Developmental Biology.

Mark Hughes undertook neurosurgery training largely in Edinburgh, with skull base and endoscopic fellowships in New York and Leeds. He incorporated a Wellcome Trust funded PhD during surgical training (exploring neuron:silicon interfaces); as well as busman's holidays to neurosurgical units in Vietnam, Nepal, and China. His subspecialty focus as a consultant neurosurgeon is pituitary and anterior skull base surgery, amongst a general neurosurgical workload. He continues some research as an honorary senior lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, particularly enjoying the application of novel technology to neurosurgical problems. He enjoys wild places and teamwork.

Zoeb is an Honorary Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and a Senior Clinical Research Fellow based in the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences and the UK Dementia Research Institute at the University of Edinburgh. His research interests are centred around investigating the cellular mechanisms underlying post-operative and critical illness-associated brain vulnerability and dysfunction. He graduated from the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford before completing Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine Specialty Training in South-East Scotland. During this time, he undertook a Wellcome Trust-funded Clinical PhD Training Fellowship in Edinburgh, followed by a Scottish Chief Scientist Office Postdoctoral Clinical Lectureship within the UK Dementia Research Institute. He enjoys teaching and is course organiser for Practical Research Methods within the University of Edinburgh Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine Intercalated BSc programme.

Rachel is a consultant anaesthetist at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Honorary Professor at the University of Glasgow, and holds an NHS Research Scotland Senior Researcher Fellowship. She is a board member of the Obstetrics Anaesthetists’ Association and was previously the research network lead for RA-UK. Her sub-specialty interest is in obstetric and regional anaesthesia, and her current research involves the linkage of routinely collected healthcare data.

Robbie is a Cardiac Anaesthetist and Intensivist at Barts Heart Centre, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and a Prehospital Physician with London HEMS, Royal London Hospital. His research interests focus on understanding the pathophysiology of exsanguination, which remains the most common cause ofpreventable death afterinjury and developing interventional strategies to target this problem in the prehospital phase of care.

Mike MacMahon is a consultant anaesthetist and intensivist in a DGH in Kirkcaldy, just over the river from Edinburgh. He’s been a consultant for nearly a decade and would like to share some insights into the imbrication of an awkward airway with physiological instability creating an extremely difficult situation for those involved. The session will focus on a scenario and use evidence and personal experience to consider options for how to proceed.

I have been a consultant paediatric anaesthetist at RHCYP for 2 years having trained in the north-west of England, prior to moving to Edinburgh for Registrar training. I completed a 12 month post-CCT fellowship at Starship in New Zealand and recently obtained an MSc with Merit in Paediatric Anaesthesia.

My work interests are anaesthesia for spinal deformity surgery in children and complex airway cases. Outside of work I pursue the typical anaesthetic endeavours of all things physically demanding having just ran the Edinburgh marathon and always looking for new Strava routes for road biking. I also have two boisterous under 5's at home who keep me grounded and constantly fatigued.

Trained in Glasgow and Edinburgh with only a debenture from Murrayfield to show for his efforts, Giles has been in the Army serving their Majesties for 31 years. For the last decade he has worked with the airborne forces and small teams, deploying across the globe from South Sudan, to Greenland and has worked from picking up casualties from the front line to completing translational MD research at Durham University. At present he is the Head of jHubMed, Defence’s only medical innovation lab and leads a small team running £8M projects looking at topics such as AI in Human Performance to drones.

Professor Sir Aziz Sheikh will be taking up the position of Nuffield Professor of Primary Care Health Sciences and Head of the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford later this year.

He has played important advisory roles to a number of governments, inter-governmental bodies, including the World Bank, World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Innovation Summit for Health, and leading scientific bodies including the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal Society.

He is a fellow of nine learned societies and has been awarded numerous UK and international awards for his work.

Aziz was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for ‘Services to Medicine and Health Care’ in 2014 and a Knight Bachelor in 2022 for ‘Services to COVID-19 Research and Policy’.

Mary Slingo is a Consultant Anaesthetist at University Hospital Southampton, specialising in anaesthesia for major thoracic and vascular surgery, and holds an MRC Clinical Academic Research Partnership (CARP) fellowship at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on cardiopulmonary physiology, and how this is affected by both hypoxia and the molecular oxygen-sensing pathways. She is also a member of the Royal College of Anaesthetists environment advisory group, with a particular interest in integrated climate science and its application to evidence-based sustainability in anaesthesia.

Prof Stanworth has over 20 years of clinical research experience. The main aim of his research is to understand which patients need (or don’t need) blood or alternatives to blood transfusion. His research is driven by patient needs, identified by Patient and Public Engagement panels and work for James Lind Priority Setting Partnerships.

Tim Walsh is also Director Innovation for NHS Lothian, and Health Innovation South East Scotland. He is Head of the Academic Dept of Anaesthesia, Critical Care, and Pain Medicine in the University of Edinburgh, and Co-director of Acute Care Edinburgh a multidisciplinary research grouping in the University of Edinburgh Usher Institute.

Tim leads a multidisciplinary clinical research group with interests including transfusion medicine, sedation in the critically ill, recovery from critical illness and the epidemiology and prevention of ICU acquired infection. He has a particular interest in large pragmatic clinical trials, complex health intervention trials, and the evaluation of novel diagnostics and technologies in acute care. He is a past Chairman of the NIHR UK Critical Care Research Network and UK Critical Care Research Group.

Regional anaesthesia and TIVA enthusiast - RA lead for RHCYP, teaching and training - sits on the APAGBI education and training committee.

X: @suying87