Meet our Team

Dr Jo Szram

Jo is a consultant respiratory physician who works in the Occupational Lung Disease Clinic at the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals (RBHH), part of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.  She was DME at RBHH until 2019, where she is now Clinical Appraisal Lead.

Jo has worked at Health Education England as Core Medical Training Programme Director for HEE North West London and then Deputy Postgraduate Dean for South London, clinical lead for the Physician Specialty Recruitment Office (PSRO) and Chair of the HEE Dean’s Leadership Leads group. In 2020 she moved to a role on the National Directorate of Education and Quality (DEQ) where she works as clinical advisor for the Enhancing Generalist Skills and Flexible Portfolio Training programmes within the Medical Education Reform portfolio.

Jo is a Trustee Councillor and Linacre fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, a role supporting College Tutors and Associate College Tutors and a PACES examiner as well as an associate editor of the Future Healthcare Journal. She is Chair of the National Association of Clinical Tutors (NACT UK), a postgraduate medical education leadership association supported by COPMeD and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. She tweets regularly from @lungsatwork

Dr Peter Taylor

Peter trained in Sheffield and Bristol and worked as a Haematologist in Rotherham until retiring from clinical practice in 2016. He had an active research interest and developed a supra-regional service for the management of bone marrow transplant complications. He co-founded and subsequently chaired the UK Photopheresis Society and  participated in national and international service reviews.

He was Director of Medical Education  before spending  the last 10 years as a Deputy Postgraduate Dean. He was awarded a Masters in Medical Education and recently achieved ILM (level 5) status in Coaching and Mentoring.

His main interest has been in supporting the development, implementation and assessment of a board range of educational  materials both for healthcare trainees and particularly their supervisors, and has been an active participant in the national Delivering Excellence in Medical Education Conference.

Peter has an extensive experience of educational quality reviews across a range of healthcare providers, and this has focused his desire to enhance the quality of training experiences for all learners – and their trainers.

Dr Yvette Oade

Yvette recently worked as the Medical Director for the Nightingale Hospital Yorkshire and Humber. She retired as Chief Medical Officer & Deputy Chief Executive for Leeds Teaching Hospitals recently after seven years in post. During her time in Leeds the trust went through a dramatic transformation – improving staff engagement, quality of care and financial turnaround. Yvette was a key instigator & leader of the Leeds Improvement Method – working with Virginia Mason Institute in Seattle. She also led significant improvements in Research & Education.

She was previously the Chief Medical Officer of Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust and Deputy Chief Executive, a role she undertook for 2 years, focussing on quality improvement and patient safety.

Originally trained as a doctor in Leeds, Yvette became a Consultant Paediatrician in Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation NHS Trust. Yvette held a number of senior managerial roles in the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust. These culminated in her being appointed Executive Medical Director in 2007 and the trust being named as HSJ Acute Provider of the Year in 2010. Yvette has extensive experience in leading through clinical engagement, major service change, reconfiguring hospital services and working across organisational boundaries to deliver improvements to care. Yvette is also a Lay Member of Council of the University of Leeds.

Dr Andrew Long

Dr Andrew Long has been a consultant in general paediatrics within the UK for 28 years and was appointed to Great Ormond Street Hospital in 2011 to support the development of the new team of general paediatricians. He was appointed as Deputy Medical Director and Responsible Officer in May 2016. He leads a workstream on Patient Safety and Professional Accountability. He is an Honorary Associate Professor at the Institute of Child Health, UCL.

Andrew was Chair of the National Association of Clinical Tutors from 2003 to 2006; Head of the London School of Paediatrics and Associate Dean in the University of London from 2009 until 2014 and Vice President for Education at Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health from 2013 until 2018. He was involved in establishing the Professional Support Unit and Careers Service for the London Deanery and has more recently been involved in the work of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges leading the work on remediation for doctors in difficulty. He has a longstanding interest in mentoring and careers support and completed a Masters in Interprofessional Education in 2008.

Dr Dipesh Odedra

Dipesh Odedra is the Director of Postgraduate Dental & Medical Education and an Associate Medical Director at Leeds Teaching Hospitals.

Dipesh has been a consultant anaesthetist at Leeds since 2011, and in that time has held the college tutor post as well as Deputy DME and more recently became the Postgraduate Director of Medical Education at the start of the pandemic. During his time as college tutor, Dipesh introduced a successful MTI fellowship program and expanded it to recruit successfully additional Trust doctors. Due to his experience, he was invited to be on the RCoA MTI leadership group since its formation and has delivered talks to new MTIs and potential hosts hospitals on the college workshops. 

In his current role, Dipesh leads on international relationships for the Trust and is now sharing his experience with other specialties to assist in the workforce challenges in the junior grades and how to integrate additional posts and roles into the junior workforce and securing new talent pipelines to expand senior decision maker grades.  

Due to his experience in medical education, departmental and senior management, recruitment and workforce, Dipesh is able to draw upon a wide range of experiences to support his teaching.

Dr Emily Muirhead

Emily Muirhead is a GP, educator, appraiser and an executive ILM qualified coach in West Yorkshire. Emily is passionate about communication and using these skills to facilitate a better work:life balance to avoid stress and burnout.

She is also a professional jazz singer, giving her a unique style in connecting with people.

Ms Sarah Johnson

Sarah is an Organisational Development Manager and Leadership Development Specialist within the NHS. She believes in supporting leaders and managers through coaching, mentoring and personal development interventions and programmes to help them to be as effective as possible to ensure delivery of excellent services to all service users.

Sarah also runs her own company, Advanced Coaching Academy, and delivers Institute of Leadership and Management qualifications for individuals to become executive, workplace and strategic coaches and mentors.

Sarah describes herself as a solution focused, transformational coach who works with individuals and teams. She has delivered team coaching to senior leadership teams and has supported Trusts to develop internal coaching and mentoring strategy and infrastructure to support this.

As a team facilitator/coach Sarah has enabled ‘team turnarounds’ in both acute and mental health sectors and is also a qualified Coaching supervisor. 

Dr Mark Slade

Mark has held leadership roles within the NHS as a clinical director, medical director and responsible officer.  He is a committed educator and enjoys excellent feedback as a coach, mentor, educational supervisor and appraiser.  He is an appraiser of medical directors for NHS England.  

He completed the international health and social care leadership programme of the University of Yale school of public health and regularly teaches on leadership and its components. Across 2022 91% of attendees rated him as excellent or very good as a facilitator.

Dr James Storey

Dr James Storey is a Consultant Acute Physician in Yorkshire. He currently also holds the roles of Associate Director for Medical Education Leeds and is a Royal College of Physicians College tutor. He has previously held roles of Simulation Lead for his trust and Simulation Training Programme Director for Postgraduate School of Medicine for Health Education England Y&H.

He is an experienced facilitator; having the role of Course Director for numerous procedural and non-technical skills simulation courses in the region. He completed his FMLM Advanced Medical Leadership programme in 2019 and a PGCE in Clinical Education in 2020.His areas of interest are utilising Simulation methodology, specifically focusing on the importance on non-technical skills/human factors, to improve quality of healthcare delivery, patient safety and the training of doctors and inter-professional clinicians of the future.

Outside of Medicine he attempts to raise 3 daughters and be an obedient husband. In his ‘free time’ he enjoys mastering the art of barbecue cookery, and supporting Manchester United FC (which was a lot more fun in the 90s and 00s than it is presently…)

Dr Sophie Price

Sophie is a Consultant in Palliative Medicine working across acute trust and community services.  She has a specialist interest in Medical Education, completing a Masters degree in 2014 and a subsequent fellowship with HEE in Wessex, leading the group of regional Medical Education Fellows.

She has run and published a number of qualitative research studies in medical education for postgraduate trainees and professional support. She is an experienced facilitator, teaching on regional and national multi-professional programmes, including courses for specialty training, enhanced communication skills and training the trainers.  She joined DoctorsTraining in 2016

Dr Sanjay Suri

Sanjay Suri is a Consultant Paediatrician based Rotherham. He has held the position of Training Programme Director with the School of Paediatrics in Yorkshire and Humber for the past 10 years. He has a longstanding interest in Resilience and helped to launch and deliver the Surviving and Thriving course in Yorkshire 3 years ago. 

He developed his interest in Mindfulness approximately 5 years ago after working with the local clinical psychologist and a series of his own patients with anxiety who responded positively to the mentioning mindfulness intervention. He has completed an 8-week MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) course (developed by Jon Kabat Zinn at Harvard) and is currently training to be a MBSR teacher with Bangor University (North Wales) Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice. 

Sanjay brings a unique skill set as an experienced doctor and educator who has supported many trainees throughout their training with a balance and fresh perspective of mindfulness training that is invaluable in maintaining positive emotions and well being required in the ever increasing demand and strain within the medical profession. 

Dr Bob Philips

Bob Phillips is an Honorary Consultant in Paediatric / Teenage-Young Adult Oncology at Leeds Children’s Hospital and Senior Clinical Academic at the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination at the University of York. 

Bob has worked extensively to promote and teach evidence-based practice with the Yorkshire Deanery, providing training to multidisciplinary groups and individuals. He has worked with the Centre for Evidence-based Medicine in Oxford, UK, and also the Centre for Evidence-based Child Health (Institute of Child Health, London, UK). He edits the evidence-based practice sections of the Archives of Diseases in Childhood, and is an associate editor of the journal. He has lectured in the UK, Europe, North America, Australia and the Nordic Countries on the subject of evidence-based practice, and has written widely on this.

Dr James Tomlinson

James is a Consultant Orthopaedic Spinal Surgeon in Sheffield, and Education TPF for Trauma and Orthopaedics in Yorkshire. He was recently appointed Deputy Director of the Faculty of Surgical Trainers, RCS Edinburgh.  He teaches regionally, nationally and internationally on orthopaedics and non-technical skills, and is a member of the RCSEd NOTSS faculty.

He holds postgraduate qualifications in Medical Leadership and Education, and has supervised a number of leadership fellows working on educational leadership projects.

He is an alumni of the Yorkshire Future Leaders Programme and remains actively involved in the programme, supervising leadership fellows. He is also a 360 facilitator the Healthcare Leadership Academy.

Dr Shubhada Suri (Shub)

Shub is a GP Partner and Trainer and has worked at Dinnington Group Practice, Sheffield since 2006.She is a mindfulness teacher and has trained at the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice (CMRP), University of Bangor, Wales. She has an interest in Medical Education and has completed the Postgraduate Certificate in Medical Education from the University of Sheffield. She has facilitated several introductory and 8-week courses in mindfulness for the NHS during the pandemic. She is passionate about bringing mindfulness into the medical world to reduce stress and improve the wellbeing of doctors, NHS staff and patients.

Shub started her career in India and practised for 3 years after doing post-graduation in General Medicine. Since coming to the UK in 1993 she initially worked as a trainee in General and Elderly medicine and completed the MRCP. She then worked as a SAS doctor prior to qualifying as a GP in 2005.She has been a GP trainer since 2010 and is currently supervising Advanced Care Practitioner (ACP) training.

Dr Rob Macpherson

Rob trained in Leicester, Sheffield and Bristol and after working as a consultant psychiatrist in Gloucestershire in various Trust roles, retired from full time work in 2017. He now works as a part time early intervention psychiatrist in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.  He is also a Clinical Director of Research in 2Gether trust.  

Throughout his career Rob had a significant involvement in medical education, having been clinical tutor, training programme director for general adult psychiatry and for seven years head of Severn School of psychiatry.  

He was also involved in the development of appraisal in his trust and was lead for appraisal for a number of years, subsequently sitting on the appraisal committee up to his retirement from full-time work.  

He has had a number of college roles, including seven years as Director of South West Training, and membership of the Royal College of Psychiatrists recruitment committee.  He has continued to work in research through his career and has ongoing  research interests, as well as a current role focussing on the strategic development of research in his Trust.  His interests outside work include travel, sailing, tennis and music.

Dr Pria Krishnasamy

Pria is a Consultant in Sport & Exercise Medicine in Leicester and is passionate about health and wellbeing, encompassing physical activity, dietary and lifestyle components both in health and in persons with chronic diseases. 

She is also a certified Lifebook Premium Leader, and helps to guide, empowering consciousness to choose the life one would like to lead across all aspects in life.

Dr Monica Negoita 

Monica is an enthusiastic senior paediatric trainee in Community Child Health in West Yorkshire. She trained in Romania, Republic of Ireland and the UK and comes with a wide view on medical education in different settings. She completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Child Health at the University of Leeds. 

Monica has a keen interest and growing experience in undergraduate and postgraduate medical education. She believes everyone deserves easy access to knowledge and information that is tailored to their learning needs, styles, and expectations. She has been the chair of the Yorkshire and Humber regional Level 3 trainee-led paediatric training programme and has driven the programme’s development and restructuring for online delivery through the COVID19 pandemic. She also helped deliver regional programmes including Ethics principles in medical research, teaching and supervision skills. 

On a national level, Monica is part of the organising committee for The Neurodisability Community, a programme delivering weekly webinars aimed at all UK Paediatric Neurodisability and Community Child Health grid trainee doctors, but open to anyone with an interest in the field. Monica is one of two national trainee representatives for the British Association of Community Child Health (BACCH), working to raise the profile of Community Paediatrics, improve recruitment to the subspeciality and help improve training for all colleagues. 

Dr Sara McDouall 

Sara is a Consultant Anaesthetist at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading. She has been Associate DME for the last 4 years, with the specific role of trainee support and wellbeing. 

Sara is also Training Programme Director for the Speciality trainees in Thames Valley, and wellbeing lead for Anaesthetics. 

Her interest in education started early on as a consultant, when she ran weekly viva practice for the Core Trainees in Royal Berkshire Hospital for 5 years. Since then she has completed a Post Graduate Certificate in Medical Education, and built on her skills as a communicator and educator. 

In collaboration with Thames Valley PSWS, she created Survive and Thrive, now a regionally run, workshop based course for all trainees, to better understand themselves and how to thrive through the lifelong challenges of being a medical practitioner. 

Outside the workplace, Sara enjoys growing vegetables and having chickens and hopes to expand her smallholding in the future, when time allows. 

Mr Dan Beral

Dan went to medical school in Leeds and trained around Yorkshire before being appointed as a Consultant Colorectal and General Surgeon in Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals in 2012. He was the surgical College Tutor at DBTH for 8 years before becoming Deputy Director of Education (aka DME) in March 2020.

He is passionate about quality in training and supervision and enhancing the working relationship between supervisors and trainees. He delivered trainer bootcamps as part of the Improving Surgical Training pilot, is clinical lead for the Royal College of Surgeons of England Excellence in Surgical Supervision course and faculty on their Training the Trainers course. 

He is a Fellow of the Faculty of Surgical Trainers of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and faculty for their NOTSS (non-technical skills for surgeons) course. He also delivers several clinical training courses including live operating and simulation.

Dr Andy Davies

Andy is a Consultant in Emergency Medicine at Leeds Teaching Hospitals and is an Associate Director Medical Education for Clinical Skills, Simulation and Technology Enhanced Learning in the Trust. He established the renowned @LeedsEDSim programme and is broadening the in-situ simulation and debriefing community across the trust in a Multi-professional, Multi-speciality manner. He has a particular interest in Human Factors and non-technical skills training within simulation.

Andy is an accredited Executive Coach and is particularly driven on supporting Doctors in training working through points of transition. He has experience of Clinical Leadership roles and in the RCEM EM Leaders development programme and has previously held Education lead roles for Simulation and Core Training in Emergency Medicine. He is an active Training Programme Director for ACCS trainees in Emergency Medicine, and very experienced supervisor.

Dr Jane Thurlow

Jane trained in anaesthesia in the South West of England before becoming a Consultant Anaesthetist at Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton, Somerset Foundation Trust in 2003. 

She has had a keen interest in Medical Education for most of her medical career: Having initially been Undergraduate Tutor for Medical students, she went on to concentrate on Postgraduate Medical Education and became an assigned Educational Supervisor to anaesthetic trainees for a number of years before becoming College Tutor for Anaesthesia. 

She was appointed as Taunton & Somerset  Foundation Trust’s  Director of Postgraduate Medical Education in 2014, stepping down from this role in 2017 to become Associate Dean for Education and Faculty Development in Severn Deanery.  She then went on to become the Associate Dean for Professional Education and Development as SW lead, HEE-SW in 2020. 

Jane has experience in educational and faculty programmes that support local and national developments and initiatives particularly supporting accreditation and ongoing continuing professional development of Education and Clinical Supervisors and educational programmes for Postgraduate Doctors in Training. 

Dr Suzy Jordache

After 17 years clinical experience as a doctor working in psychiatry and palliative care in the UK, Suzy spent 11 years working with doctors for a large, international medical defence organisation to reduce medicolegal risk and professional burnout. During this time she:

• Trained and mentored an international faculty of 50 presenters to deliver communication skills and medicolegal risk management lectures, workshops and residential programmes.
• Researched and developed face to face and on-line training in resilience, burnout and the associated risk in healthcare settings
• Trained doctors in reliability science, ergonomics and cognitive biases affecting patient safety.
• Personally coached hundreds of doctors. Methods used have been demonstrated in published research to reduce the risk of claim or referral to regulatory bodies and to increase ‘joy in work’.

Working with doctors before and throughout the global pandemic in the UK, Ireland, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore has given her a unique insight into the strengths and vulnerabilities doctors bring to the workplace. 

Dr Kath Rowe

Kath has been a Consultant in Intensive Care and Anaesthesia for over 10 years, having trained in Yorkshire, the East of England and the Johns Hopkins Medical Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. 

She also works part time as a voting member of the Governing Body for the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group.

She has held leadership positions in deteriorating patients, organ donation, appraisal and revalidation and clinical effectiveness.  Kath has recently completed an Executive MBA which includes level 7 CMI accreditation in Management.

Dr Christopher Caddy

Christopher M Caddy: a ‘rewired’ Plastic, Reconstructive & Aesthetic Surgeon. An Edinburgh graduate he travelled widely: training in Australia, South Africa, USA and Europe.  His career spanned senior positions in clinical, educational, managerial and leadership. His passion (ikigai) is derived through facilitation and delivery of high-quality education & training and systems improvement.  Trained as ILM Coach/Mentor and in FLOW (team) Coaching. His qualifications: Fellow of the Faculty of Surgical Trainers, Fellow of the Academy of Medical Educators, Fellow of the Institute of Leadership and Management and Senior Fellow of the Faculty of Medical Leaders and Managers. He leads on mentorship development for the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, as a Member of Council. This provides a global platform from which to influence change, through codeveloping systems for educational delivery and assessment.  

Happily married with four children and two grandchildren.  He champions sustainability, is a mindfulness practitioner and lives in the ‘now’.  His extra-curricular activities include scuba diving, mountain climbing, sailing, skiing, running and indoor rowing!

Dr Jane Sturgess

Jane is a consultant anaesthetist who has worked in both tertiary teaching and district general hospitals. She has been a consultant for over 10 years. She trained in London, East of England and Wales.

As an educator she has been a clinical supervisor, an educational supervisor, a foundation training programme director and is currently an Associate Dean for Faculty Development in East of England.

She has held numerous leadership positions and posts in patient safety, and is trained in QI methodology including LEAN. She has published on Consent, and essential legal matters for medics.

Dr Mayada Elsheikh

Mayada is a Senior Trainee in Emergency Medicine in West Yorkshire, currently working in Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust. She has also completed her Paediatric Emergency Medicine Subspecialisation. She has trained in The Sudan and the UK.

Having had an interest in medical education early on in her training she took a post in Simulation & Medical Education introducing a technology enhanced learning (TEL) element to the programme. She found this passion in TEL particularly useful at the beginning of the covid pandemic when a lot of education became virtual. Changes she made have been incorporated in every trust in the region both in undergraduate and postgraduate education. She also developed virtual resources to train educators in using TEL.

Her time in the simulation fellowship has helped her develop an interest in non-technical skills and unconscious bias which she incorporates in her teaching sessions. 

As an international medical graduate (IMG) she developed a particular interest in IMG education and has delivered courses tailored to the non-clinical needs of IMGs.

Outside of work she loves to travel and enjoys escape rooms and a bit of axe throwing.

Dr James Read

Dr Jamie Read is Dean of Medical Education and Director of the Centre of Medical Education at Cardiff University School of Medicine. He is also SAS Lead for the Royal College of Physicians. An Associate Specialist in Geriatric Medicine by background, Jamie has pursued an education career alongside his clinical roles, undertaking academic training before stepping into his SAS role.

Jamie’s interests in medical education include how doctors develop their professional identities, a topic his PhD focussed on. This research and education background has been especially useful in informing work creating and delivering on the Royal College of Physicians’ SAS Strategy. Outside of work, Jamie is a keen runner and splits his time between Cornwall and South Wales.

Dr Sarah Coope

Sarah qualified as a doctor in 1998 and has a strong background in clinical, education, coaching and leadership roles in healthcare.

She was a GP for 20yrs and, during the last 10yrs of that time, gained extensive experience in developing and delivering communication and professional skills training for doctors, at all stages of their careers and across specialties. 

Sarah has been involved in providing regular training for junior doctors through HEE and also for MPS members globally, through creating learning activities with the aim of reducing medico-legal risk and enhancing clinician professionalism and wellbeing.

She is also a qualified appraiser, coach, mentor and accredited mediator, working with clinicians and managers in a variety of healthcare settings, in order to identify the root cause of issues & challenges faced and has received consistent feedback about her supportive, intuitive approach and creation of a psychologically safe space for effective problem-solving and implementation.

She has held leadership roles as Named GP Safeguarding Children for Hull CCG, Clinical Director PCN and recently at RCOG as Director of Education.

Ms Emma Fisher

Emma is a Leadership Development Specialist Consultant with over 15 years’ experience of working for the NHS & private sector.  She is experienced in supporting leaders and managers through coaching, mentoring and personal development interventions and programmes to help them to be as effective and efficient as possible. 

Emma also runs her own company, Advanced Coaching Academy, and delivers Institute of Leadership and Management qualifications for individuals to become executive, workplace and strategic coaches and mentors.

Emma describes herself as a solution focused, transformational coach who works with individuals, teams, and has a systemic approach.

She has delivered Individual, and team coaching to senior leadership teams and has supported Trusts to develop internal coaching and mentoring strategy and infrastructure to support this.

As a team facilitator/coach Emma has enabled ‘team turnarounds’ in both acute and mental health sectors and is also a Coaching & Mentoring supervisor.

Dr Jen Russell

Jen is an Emergency Medicine Consultant in Leeds and is a committed appraiser, mentor, assessor and educator. 

Jen’s academic interest lies in performance and assessment. Her knowledge and passion for the philosophy and value of assessment drives her to enable others to better understand its importance, to advocate for collaboration in learning and to role-model effective feedback practice.

Jen was awarded distinction for her master’s in clinical education, and has a reputation for highly-effective facilitation of learning and development. She has extensive experience of educating in both virtual and face to face environments, understanding the benefits and barriers of learning in these modalities.

In her non-working time, Jen can usually be found at the side of a cricket pitch or fettling in her garden, ideally accompanied by gin and sunshine.

Dr Liz Spencer

Founder of DoctorsTraining

Special Thank you……..

Liz founded DoctorsTraining in 2008 and retired as a consultant anaesthetist in Gloucestershire in 2017. She obtained her diploma in Medical Education, University of Bristol in 2005 and is an Executive Coach (ILM Level 7). She was Director of Medical Education for ten years and elected onto NACT UK Council in 2004, Chair 2006-9 and Education Adviser until 2018. She has published guidance for NACT UK members and nationally on many aspects of medical education.

She developed a Faculty Development programme for her Trust, assisted the Severn Deanery and HEE SW develop materials for their Trainers and has travelled the country developing Faculty, particularly Educational & Clinical Supervisors. She has presented nationally and internationally on Supporting Doctors in Difficulty and delivered Leadership in Medical Education courses for NACT UK, RCS (London) and the London Deanery. She is an Appraiser for her Trust and NHS England & is a recognised Appraiser trainer.