Cardiology, Diabetes and CKD 2009 Speakers

Please see below for a selection of 2009 speakers.

Dr Ahmet Fuat (Manchester, London and Glasgow)
Ahmet Fuat is a GP in Darlington and has been a GP Specialist in Cardiology for several years. He has published numerous articles on managing heart failure in peer reviewed journals and has a PhD on the management of heart failure across primary and secondary care from the University of Durham. In his role as a senior clinical lecturer at the University of Durham, he is involved in several pragmatic research projects in heart failure.

He is Honorary Secretary of the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society and a peer reviewer for several journals, including the BMJ, the British Journal of General Practice, Heart and the European Heart Failure Journal. His other interests include education in general practice.

Dr Kathryn Griffith (Manchester, London and Glasgow)
Kathryn Griffith is a GP in York and is Clinical Cardiovascular (CVD) Lead for York and North Yorkshire Primary Care Trust. She has worked in cardiology at York District hospital for over 12 years and was one of the first intake on the Bradford Course for Practitioners with a Special Interest in Cardiology in 2003. She is now one of the course tutors leading the CHD and hypertension and arrhythmia modules.

Dr Griffith continues to work at York District Hospital in the Rapid Access Chest Pain Clinic and as Co-investigator for the Cardiology Research Department. She is Chairman Elect of the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society and Lead (with Dr Ahmet Fuat) in the GPs with a Special Interest (GPwSI) in Cardiology Forum, a national support group for GPwSI. She has written and lectured on managing hypertension, chronic kidney disease, ischaemic heart disease, and atrial fibrillation, and regards interpreting ECGs as challenging but fun!

Dr Jane Skinner (Manchester)
Jane Skinner trained as a cardiologist, and has also completed training in general practice. She is a Consultant Cardiologist at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle and has an interest in community cardiology. The community cardiology services include cardiac rehabilitation and heart failure nursing. Dr Skinner works with primary care implementing evidence-based practice and supports the development of services. Specific areas of interest include primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease, cardiac rehabilitation, heart failure and the development and implementation of guidelines.

Dr Terry McCormack (Glasgow)
Terry McCormack is a family doctor in the Whitby Group Practice, an anaesthetics hospital practitioner at the local community hospital, the LMA for Whitby Lifeboat and an honorary teaching fellow of the Imperial College of Medicine. He was a steering committee member and an investigator for HYVET (Hypertension in the Very Elderly Trial) which was published in the NEJM in 2008. He is the former Chairman of the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society. He sits on the Prevention and Care Committee of the British Heart Foundation and is one of the three editors of the British Journal of Cardiology.

Professor Michael Kirby (Manchester, London and Glasgow)
Michael Kirby has been a GP in Letchworth, Hertfordshire since 1973. He was appointed as Director of HertNet (The Hertfordshire Primary Care Research Network) in 1998. His practice provides an open access echocardiography service for patients with heart failure for the North Hertfordshire Primary Care Trust. He is also Visiting Professor to the Faculty of Health and Human Sciences at the University of Hertfordshire.

He qualified at St Mary's Hospital, London before working as a Cardiology Registrar at the QEII Hospital, Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire. He is an Associate Member of the British Association of Urological Surgeons and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. His editorial responsibilities include the British Journal of Diabetes and Vascular Disease, the British Journal of Cardiology, Geriatric Medicine, Health & Ageing and the International Journal of Clinical Practice. He also holds membership of several NHS advisory boards. He has published more than 200 clinical papers and 23 books. His special interests include cardiology, diabetes, osteoporosis, men's health and urology, and education. When away from work he can be found cycling the lanes of Hertfordshire.

Mrs Debbie Hicks (Manchester and Glasgow)
Debbie Hicks began diabetes nursing in 1990 when she developed the diabetes specialist nursing service in Hull as a lone practitioner, and is now the lead diabetes specialist nurse with seven other colleagues.
She leads a team of four nurses and one secretary at the Enfield Primary Care Trust, where the diabetes nursing team aims to provide high quality diabetes care within the community. The team provides two new patient clinics, five follow up clinics and a neurovascular clinic weekly. It also provides education for people with diabetes and healthcare professionals, and supports practice based teams offering diabetes care. The Enfield diabetes model is used as a benchmark by other London primary care trusts.
Mrs Hicks has published over 50 papers in the United Kingdom, Italy and the United States of America, including papers on insulin therapy, injection device choice, injections, blood glucose monitoring, care delivery, patient education, service redesign and other topics. She has presented papers in the UK, New Zealand, Israel, Switzerland and the Irish Republic.
Mrs Hicks is the editor of the Journal of Diabetes Nursing.

Mrs Gwen Hall (London)
Gwen Hall has a background as a practice nurse/nurse practitioner, has been employed as a CHD facilitator and is now, a diabetes specialist nurse in primary care/clinical education. She provides an intermediate service between primary and secondary care. Gwen Hall is vice chair of the Primary Care Diabetes Society, associate editor of Diabetes and Primary Care and has recently joined the committee of Primary Care Diabetes Europe. She is the new author of Providing Diabetes Care in General Practice, previously by Mary MacKinnon. In 2008 she was invited to give the prestigious Mary MacKinnon lecture at the annual professional conference of Diabetes UK .

Dr Marc Evans (Manchester)
Marc Evans has been a consultant diabetologist at Llandough Hospital and the University Hospital of Wales since the beginning of 2003, having been a lecturer in diabetes and endocrinology at the University of Wales College of Medicine. He has a continuing interest in education, particularly in postgraduate education in the field of diabetes, lipid metabolism and cardiovascular disease. As a clinical lecturer, Dr Evans developed clinical and laboratory based studies to evaluate the vascular benefits of the insulin sensitisers. He developed a specialised cardiovascular risk factor and metabolic syndrome assessment clinic service.  Dr Evans also initiated a specialist nurse led metabolic review clinic for patients with type 2 diabetes.  He has published over 75 articles, book chapters and abstracts.

Dr Rebecca Reynolds (Glasgow)
Rebecca Reynolds is a senior lecturer in endocrinology and diabetes at the University of Edinburgh where her clinical interests are in diabetes, obesity, obesity associated with pregnancy and reproductive endocrinology. Rebecca’s research focus is on the early life origins of adult disease and current projects include investigating the role of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and nutrition in early life programming of cardiometabolic disease in pregnancies associated with obesity and/or unbalanced diets; and understanding the role of the HPA axis in the development of complications associated with diabetes, including cognitive decline and cardiovascular risk. 

Dr Philip Kalra (Manchester)
Philip Kalra graduated from Cambridge University and St Thomas’ Hospital and after training in nephrology in Leeds, New Zealand and Greater Manchester, was appointed consultant nephrologist at Salford in 1995. He has an interest in postgraduate training in nephrology and is the editor of a textbook used by candidates preparing for the MRCP. Dr Kalra holds an honorary readership appointment at the University of Manchester, is lead of the vascular research team at Salford Royal Hospital and is also lead of the renal theme of the Greater Manchester comprehensive research network. He has a research interest in atherosclerotic renovascular disease (ARVD) and is co-originator and lead nephrologist for the ASTRAL trial, the largest RCT investigating ARVD, which is supported by MRC, KR-UK and BHF funding.
Other research interests include chronic kidney disease (CKD) epidemiology and CKD-related vascular calcification. Dr Kalra is a member of the Kidney Research UK grants committee and of the UK Renal Association executive.

Dr David Goldsmith (London)
David Goldsmith is honorary senior lecturer and deputy director of research and development at King’s Healthcare Partners (Guy’s campus) and was RCP clinical tutor for Guy’s Hospital from 2000 to 2005. He is also associate professor of nephrology at Gr T Popa University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Iasi, Romania. Dr Goldsmith is co-editor of the Journal of Nephrology, a member of the editorial board of International Urology and Nephrology and reviewer for a number of publications. He has published widely, including two books and 250 papers. He has been clinical lead for the NHS Information Kidney and Urogenital Diseases Specialist Libraries and a member of the Scientific Organising Council for ERA-EDTA Congresses since 2005. He joined the cardiorenal working group of the ERA-EDTA this year, having been an ERA-EDTA council member in 2004–7. Dr Goldsmith was the UK principal investigator for the COSMOS study.

Dr Mark MacGregor (Glasgow)
Mark MacGregor is a consultant nephrologist and physician, clinical director and senior medical officer in the Scottish government dealing with revalidation. After graduating in medicine and physiology from Glasgow University, he trained mainly in the west of Scotland. His clinical interests lie in the epidemiology and management of chronic kidney disease and in the development of newer approaches to haemodialysis. Dr MacGregor’s research is currently focused on using proteinuria to predict renal and other outcomes in patients. He helped to standardise eGFR reporting in Scotland, was a member of the SIGN CKD guideline group and is a member of the Renal Association executive committee.

View past speakers in the Cardiology, Diabetes and CKD series