THET

Trustees

THET Trustees

Professor Stephen Tomlinson, CBE MD FRCP FMedSci – Chairman
Stephen@thet.org

Professor Tomlinson graduated in Medicine in 1968 from Sheffield and completed specialist training in diabetes, endocrinology, metabolic medicine and general medicine. From 1993 to 1999 he was Dean of the Medical School and Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing in Manchester. He established a link with Kumasi in Ghana based upon exchanges of nurses, dieticians and chiropodists, to improve care for people with diabetes. Subsequently, he was also involved in supporting THET initiatives in the provision of postgraduate medical education for young doctors in Ghana. Professor Tomlinson became Chair of THET’s Board of Trustees in 2007.

He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wales College of Medicine from August 2001 to August 2004; he then became Provost of Cardiff University. He was President of the Association of Physicians of Great Britain and Ireland from 2002 to 2003. Professor Tomlinson was a member, then Chairman of the British Council Health Advisory Committee and subsequently a member of the Council’s Science, Engineering and Environment Committee. He has served on the Council’s Wales Advisory Committee and in 2007, he was awarded the CBE for services to medicine.

Professor Eldryd Parry, OBE
Eldryd@thet.org +44 (0) 207 290 3887

Eldryd Parry studied medicine at Cambridge and Cardiff and was seconded from 1960 to 1963 to University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria. In January 1966 he returned to Africa at Haile Sellassie I University, Addis Ababa, and left in 1969 to take the Chair of Medicine at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria. He moved in 1977 to the University of Ilorin, Nigeria, as the Foundation Dean of Medicine, where, with Professor Ladipo Akinkugbe, he introduced a radical community based programme, COBES. In 1980 he went to Ghana for five years as Dean and Professor of Medicine at the now Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. In all these posts he was engaged in clinical work, teaching and research.

He is senior editor of Principles of Medicine in Africa (RSM1st Prize 2004; BMA 1st Prize 2005) and has published many papers on tropical cardiovascular and infectious disease. He is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Cardiff and of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where he is also an Honorary Professor; an honorary Foundation Fellow at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ghana, and a Foundation Member of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of Amoud University, Somaliland. In 1988 he founded THET; he stepped down as Chair in January 2007. In 2007, Professor Parry was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the Royal Society of Medicine for achievement in tropical medicine, and was made an Honorary Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. This year, he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He was awarded the OBE in 1982.

Mr David Challen, CBE

David Challen has extensive international experience in the financial sector and securities markets. He is a Vice Chairman of European Investment Banking at Citigroup. He was Director and later Chairman for J. Henry Schroder & Co. Limited before its merger with Citigroup. He is the senior non-executive director at Anglo American plc and a non-executive director at Smiths Group plc, for each of which he chairs the Audit Committee. He is a Deputy Chairman of the Takeover Panel, a former member of the Financial Reporting Council and was the first chairman of the Financial Services Practitioner Panel, set up by statute when the Financial Services Authority was created. He was awarded the CBE in 2002 for services to the financial sector.

Mr Jimi Coker

Mr Coker qualified as a doctor at the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Nigeria in 1984. He came to the UK in 1987 for postgraduate training in general surgery. He was appointed Consultant Surgeon with specialist interest in colorectal surgery at Doncaster and Bassetlaw NHS Trust in 1999. He is the Programme Director for core surgical training in South Yorkshire locality of the Yorkshire and Humberside Deanery.

Dr Coker is also the former President of Ibadan Medical Specialists Group in Ibadan, Nigeria. Jimi Coker first started collaborating with THET in 1999 as a surgical instructor with annual visits to Northern Ghana for basic and emergency surgical skills courses. He was recently appointed coordinator of the West African College of Surgeons UK forum.

Mr Andy Leather

A Consultant Surgeon at King’s College Hospital since 1996, he has held various positions in the hospital including Surgical Tutor, Deputy Director of Postgraduate Medical Education, Lead Clinician for General Surgery and Clinical Director for Surgery. He has worked with THET for 11 years, started the King’s THET Somaliland Partnership (KTSP) in 2000 and remains the UK KTSP Lead. Andy Leather founded the International Development Unit at King’s in 2006.

Peter Homa, CBE

Peter Homa is Chief Executive of Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. After completing the NHS National Management Training Scheme in London in 1981, in his early career he gained extensive healthcare management experience working in various hospitals in England and Canada. In 1989, Peter joined The Leicester Royal Infirmary where he went on to become Chief Executive.

In 1998, Peter helped create and lead the NHS Executive’s national patients’ access team to reduce the number of patients waiting for NHS treatment. In 1999 he was appointed Chief Executive of the Commission for Health Improvement. He was Chief Executive of St. George’s Healthcare NHS Trust between 2003 and 2006, before joining Nottingham University Hospitals’ NHS Trust as Chief Executive in July 2006. Peter also has extensive experience of working with charities, including having been past Chairman, Vice-President and President of the Institute of Health Care Management. He received a CBE for services to health care in the 2000 Queen’s birthday honours list.

Maura Buchanan

Maura Buchanan has been an active member of the RCN for many years. She served on RCN Council as Chair of Congress from 1998 to 2002 and as Deputy President from 2002 to 2006. She was elected to her current position of RCN President in October 2006. Maura began her nursing career graduating with a BA, RGN from Glasgow College of Technology (now Caledonia University) followed by two years working as a Research Assistant at Glasgow University.

Currently, Maura Buchanan is the Nursing and Quality Manager of the busy, acute Private Patient Unit at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. Maura’s speciality is Neurosurgery and she has worked in this area both in Glasgow, London and Oxford. Her particular interests are Health Law and Ethics. Maura is the RCN representative for the Royal Colleges International Forum.

Dr Michael Pelly

Dr Michael Pelly is a physician at Chelsea & Westminster Hospital specialising in general and acute medicine. He is the Lead Clinician in stroke medicine and is a senior lecturer at Imperial College. Michael has a special interest in humanitarian action, particularly epidemic control and the management of crises and disasters affecting large populations. He has had extensive experience in famine relief in Africa and experience working in long term programme development in Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea. He is currently an external medical advisor to a TB/HIV programme for the International Federation of the Red Cross in the Former Soviet Union.

He has recently left his role as Associate director in the International Office (Global Health) at the Royal College of Physicians after a 5 year tenure and has since become a council member of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. He is also the Vice-Chairman of the Royal Colleges International Forum.

Dr Colin Brown

Dr Colin Brown is currently undertaking an Academic Clinical Fellowship in Infectious Diseases & Microbiology at St Thomas’ Hospital. As part of this he is in the process of setting up a research partnership for his longstanding interest in TB and its interplay with HIV with colleagues at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Prior to this, he was a Fellow at the Royal Free Hospital, London, and has also gained clinical experience overseas in South Africa, New Zealand and India. For many years, Colin has worked with several internationally focused organisations in an advocacy role, beginning with the UK student group Medsin and the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations. He has since had post-qualification involvement with Alma Mata. He is the current lead on a draft proposal to develop professional postgraduate training in global health.

Colin also has a strong commitment to educational development, having sat for several years on the British Medical Association’s Medical Student Education Committee and the Junior Association for the Study of Medical Education’s National Executive.

Professor Myles Wickstead, CBE

Myles Wickstead was, from early 2004 to late 2005, Head of Secretariat to the Commission for Africa and has a long history of involvement and working in Africa. Between 1993 and 1997 he was based in Nairobi as Head of the British Development Division in Eastern Africa, responsible for British Government development programmes in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. He coordinated the 1997 Government White Paper ‘Eliminating World Poverty: A Challenge for the 21st Century’; served on the Board of the World Bank (and as Development Counsellor at the British Embassy) in Washington from 1997 to 2000; and from 2000 to 2004 was based in Addis Ababa as British Ambassador to Ethiopia and Djibouti.

Having left Government service in late 2005, Myles’ portfolio now includes: Visiting Professor (International Relations) at the Open University; Senior Advisor to the Africa Unit (Association of Commonwealth Universities); Board Chair of CONCERN UK and Independent Vice-Chair of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy; and Board member/Trustee of the British Institute in Eastern Africa, the Baring Foundation, the Tropical Health and Education Trust (THET), the University of Ulster UNESCO Centre, the Crown Agents Foundation, the Development Studies Association, the Comic Relief International Grants Committee and the Advisory Council of Wilton Park.

Myles has degrees from the Universities of St Andrews and Oxford, and was appointed CBE in 2006.

Professor Parveen Kumar – CBE

Professor Parveen Kumar qualified in medicine at St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College, University of London in 1966. She has spent most of her life working in the NHS in North and East End of London at Bart’s, the Homerton and the Royal London Hospitals. Following qualifying, she trained as a gastroenterologist and did her research at Barts. Her major research interest and publications have been in small bowel disorders, particularly coeliac disease.

She was the academic sub-dean and later Director of Post-graduate medical education for Barts and the London, and started the first MSc course in gastroenterology in this country. She changed the face of medical publishing when she co-authored Kumar and Clark’s ‘Clinical Medicine’. She is a senior examiner for the MRCP, MBBS and other post-graduate degrees- both at home and abroad. She has held several offices at the Royal College of Physicians, including those of Director of Continuing Professional Development, Academic Vice- President and Senior Censor. She has served on the academic sub-committee of Modernising Medical careers.

Professor Kumar was awarded CBE for Services to Medicine in 2000 and was also the first Asian Woman of the Year (Professional) in 1999.