Meet the Speakers
Bristol ASM 2026
Dr Tom Renninson
Consultant Anaesthetist
Dr Chris Walker
Consultant Anaesthetist
Dr Chris Walker is lead for cardiothoracic anaesthesia at Cleveland Clinic London.
Previously, he was chairman of Anaesthesia & Critical Care at Harefield Hospital, part of the Royal Brompton & Harefield Hospitals in London. During his time there, he led the acute pain service and developed a particular interest in fast‑track critical care, pain management, and recovery after cardiac and thoracic surgery. He also led the fellowship programme for over a decade.
Dr Walker has a background in military service, having seen active duty in field hospitals with the British Army as a Reservist. This experience has informed his interest in humanitarian work, including involvement with charities helping to establish cardiac surgery programmes in some
of the poorest emerging nations and support the training of local teams."
Dr Frances Rickard
Consultant Geriatrician
Dr Frances Rickard is a Consultant Geriatrician specialising in Major Trauma and Perioperative Care. After graduating from Warwick Medical School, she completed her post-graduate training in the Southwest, before beginning her consultant career at Southmead Hospital in Bristol in early 2023.
Her inpatient work involves caring for older adults admitted with major trauma, as well those with other surgical pathologies across GI, vascular, urology, and plastic surgery. Her special interest within trauma is management of patients with cSDH; she has been part of working groups within the UK and Europe centring on improving cSDH care, and has developed regional services to promote equitable access to MDT shared decision making and MMA embolisation.
She is currently a committee member for the British Geriatric Society Perioperative Medicine Special Interest Group, as well as Secretary for the European Geriatric Medicine Group.
Dr John Hickman
Consultant Anaesthetist
Dr John Hickman is a consultant anaesthetist at University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust. He has been actively involved in sustainability in healthcare for over 10 years, leading projects in the perioperative setting which have subsequently been replicated at national and international level. He is co-founder of the Severn Environmental Anaesthesia and Sustainability Network (S.E.A.S.N) and is now a member of the Bristol Sustainable Healthcare Collaboration.
Dr Fiona Donald MB ChB FRCA OBE
Consultant Anaesthetist
Fiona qualified from Bristol University Medical School in 1985 and started her training in anaesthesia in 1987. Over the course of the next 10 years she worked in the Severn region, Oxford and Geneva and was appointed to a consultant post at Southmead Hospital in Bristol in 1997. Her main areas of clinical and research interest were obstetric anaesthesia and teamwork training.
Fiona has held a number of education-related posts over the course of her career. These include being college tutor at Southmead Hospital, educational supervisor to anaesthetic resident and Foundation doctors, Chair and education lead for the Board of the Bristol School of Anaesthesia, an examiner for the Fellowship exams (FRCA) of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, and Chair of the Final FRCA.
Fiona is the immediate past President of the Royal College of Anaesthetists and retired from clinical work in 2024. She was awarded an OBE for services to Anaesthesia, Intensive Care and Pain Medicine in the King’s New Year Honours.
Dr Jenny Ferry
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Dr Lucinda Whitton
Dr Nirosha DeZoysa
Consultant Anaesthetist
Dr Nirosha DeZoysa is a Consultant Anaesthetist and the Clinical Lead for Major Trauma at North Bristol NHS Trust. Graduating from Kings College London, she moved to Bristol to complete specialist training in Anaesthesia in the Severn region. During this time, she completed advanced Trauma training in Bristol and Sydney as well as a Masters in Trauma Sciences from QMUL. Her clinical interests include Trauma, Vascular and Obstetric Anaesthesia with a particular focus on the challenges posed in high-acuity settings for decision making, team dynamics, learning and safety. In addition to her clinical work, Nirosha is dedicated to championing equity and inclusion within healthcare for staff and patients.
Dr Jess Webster
Consultant Anaesthetist
Dr Junaid Fakuta
Consultant Anaesthetist
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Dr Junaid Fakuta is a Consultant Anaesthetist at University Hospitals Bristol and Weston and Founding Director of MedRevision Ltd. A passionate educator and innovator he has won 2 national awards for his work in the Technology Enhanced Learning sphere as well as led numerous research projects in medical education at the University of Bristol. He has set up the TRU-VR (TRaining Utilising Virtual Reality) programme which incorporates Virtual Reality Simulation for the training of medical and nursing staff for critical incidents. Building on work with NHS Innovation he has recently been accepted onto the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme to bring VR simulation training to a national audience.
Dr Arul James
Consultant Anaesthetist
Dr Arul James is a UK-based Consultant in Anaesthetics and Chronic Pain Medicine with over 10 years of clinical experience across the NHS and private sector. He is the founder and creator of ARiRA – Augmented Reality in Regional Anaesthesia https://www.arira.co.uk<https://www.arira.co.uk/>, an innovative online education platform delivering ultrasound-guided regional anaesthesia training using 3D anatomy, cadaver anatomy, augmented reality, sono-anatomy and interactive virtual probe control.
Arul is also the creator of FRCA.Ai https://www.frca.ai<https://www.frca.ai/>, an AI-powered learning platform designed to support anaesthetic trainees preparing for the Primary and Final FRCA examinations, aligned with the RCoA curriculum, podcast style Q&A which you can pause to answer rather than passively listen and an interactive - Ai, video-based examiner for unlimited mini-mock SOE practice.
Since 2021, he has served as the Clinical Lead in Chronic Pain Medicine for George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust, delivering specialist biopsychosocial pain management alongside advanced interventional procedures including ultrasound- and X-ray-guided injections, radiofrequency denervation, infusions, and cryoablations more recently. He has performed over 1,000 pain interventions in the past two years alone and leads patient-centred, multidisciplinary care focused on long-term functional improvement.
Dr James is a Fellow of the Royal College of Anaesthetists (FRCA) and the Faculty of Pain Medicine (FFPMRCA), and is the author of Empowering Pain Management https://amzn.eu/d/0yiDMOJ, a practical guide for patients living with chronic pain. Through ARiRA and FRCA.Ai, his work integrates clinical expertise, medical education, and digital innovation to support both patient care and anaesthetic training at scale.
Dr Ed Miles
Dr Matt Aldridge
Consultant Anaesthetist
Dr Matt Aldridge is a Consultant Anaesthetist at North Bristol NHS Trust
with interests in medical education and artificial intelligence (AI). He is an advocate for the ethical development of medical AI, and the use of human factors science to build AI systems that enhance the human interactions at the centre of healthcare. He views AI both as a crucial societal shift to understand, and as an exciting new resource for medical educators to engage and connect with learners
Dr Mike O’Connor
Consultant Anaesthetist
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Dr Mike O’Connor graduated in Medicine from Bristol and trained in Anaesthetics in Bristol, Oxford and Adelaide before settling as a Consultant in Swindon
In Swindon Mike was College Tutor and subsequently Director of Medical Education. Nationally he was an examiner in the Primary and Final FRCA examinations and helped set up the Faculty of Pain Medicine exam. In 2008 he took up the role of Associate Dean in Severn Deanery and set up the Professional Support Unit. He gained his Postgraduate Certificate in Medical Education from the University of Wales in 2003 and completed his coaching qualification with the Institute of Leadership and Management in 2017; he is accredited as a trainer on ILM coaching courses.
Internationally Mike was heavily involved in the International Essential Pain Medicine (EPM) course and over the last few years has taught in Russia, Tanzania, the Palestinian Territories, Belarus, Serbia, South Africa and Zambia. He was awarded a Commendation by the Faculty of Pain Medicine for his work in education both in the UK and overseas.
Mike has recently been buying books on time-management but hasn’t yet had an opportunity to look at them.
Dr Ned Gilbert-Kawai
Consultant Anaesthetist
Dr Ned Gilbert-Kawai is an Anaesthetist and Intensivist at The Royal Liverpool Hospital. Having trained in Birmingham, he moved to London (via Southampton) to pursue a career as an academic clinician and completed his PhD at UCL. Ever enthusiastic to try new things (much to the dismay of those around him), he eventually finished his anaesthetic and ICM training as a 14th-year SpR, and has since continued his career attempting to balance ICM, anaesthesia, and academia
Dr Swati Gupta
Resident Anaesthetist
Dr Swati Gupta is a resident anaesthesia doctor in the southwest, chair-electof the Severn Trainee Anaesthesia Research Network (STAR) and co-lead for the 5th national Research and Audit Federation of Anaesthetists in Training (RAFT) project SECURE. She has a specialist interest in airway management, trauma management, and safety-focused transformative simulation. She has lived in four different countries and in her spare time she enjoys painting landscapes and running after her two little ones.
Dr Jon Barnes
Consultant Anaesthetist
Dr Jon Barnes is a consultant in cardiac anaesthesia and critical care at the Bristol Heart institute and an honorary senior lecturer at the University of Bristol. His main research interest is in collaborative clinical trials and perioperative interventions to improve patient outcomes. He sits on the ACTACC national executive and research committees and has an active education practice, as course director for a number of programmes and local training module lead.
