I was elected as president of SESAM’s Executive Committee at the 2017 SESAM meeting in Paris, France and succeeded as President by Marc Lazarovici at the 2019 SESAM meeting in Glasgow, Scotland.  I am a Paediatric Intensive Care Physician at the Bristol Children’s Hospital in the UK. I qualified from the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa before training in Paediatrics and Paediatric Intensive Care in South Africa, UK and Australia.

After my appointment as Consultant in PICU at Bristol Children’s hospital in 2004 i began using simulation as educational tool. Simulation became my passion and I am actively involved in simulation education at local, regional, national and international level. Internationally I have collaborated with local healthcare professionals, in a variety of healthcare settings, to establish sustainable simulation infrastructure to enhance patient safety and quality of health care delivery through the integration of multi-disciplinary simulation based education through application in four strategic pillars of Education, Quality Improvement, Clinical Governance and Research.

As a result of my work in healthcare education I have more than seven years’ experience of serving in leadership positions at a local, regional, national and international level. I hope to use this experience to build on the work of those who preceded me to grow SESAM to its full potential whilst maintaining the collaborative, welcoming spirit that SESAM and its members are known for. 

I strongly believe that SESAM has the potential to improve patient outcome across Europe by acting as a catalyst for the development of local simulation capacity though leveraging the power of SESAM membership as mentors. Thus, enabling all organisations that deliver healthcare and /or healthcare education to deliver multi-professional simulation based education.