Musculoskeletal Medicine Speakers

Dr Elspeth Wise
Dr Elspeth Wise is a salaried GP in Durham and also works in a community rheumatology clinic in Redcar & Cleveland PCT with Dr John Dickson. She has recently completed an Arthritis Research Campaign Educational Fellowship looking at GP registrars' musculoskeletal education and is in the process of writing up her MD. Elspeth is hoping to develop a career in academic general practice.

Dr John Dickson
Dr John Dickson has managed musculoskeletal conditions in primary care for over 25 years. He co-founded the Primary Care Rheumatology Society in 1986 and has written with others three books for primary care management of musculoskeletal conditions - Managing OA in Primary Care, YQA Osteoarthritis and In Clinical Practice-Arthritis. He now works as a community specialist in rheumatology for Redcar & Cleveland PCT. In April 2006 he was appointed clinical advisor to NICE for the OA Management Guidelines, February 2008. He is also helping create a forum to promote better education and management of osteoarthritis for patients and doctors. This is part of a WHO initiative for the Bone and Joint Decade.

Dr Stephen Longworth
Dr Stephen Longworth has been a full time GP in Leicester for 23 years and also works as a Hospital Practitioner in the Orthopaedic Spine Clinic at Leicester General Hospital. He was the first GPSI in Musculoskeletal Medicine in Leicester. He is a Past President of the Primary Care Rheumatology Society, a tutor and examiner for the Diploma in Primary Care Rheumatology at the University of Bath and has a Masters Degree in Sport and Exercise Medicine. He is co-author of a book on joint and soft tissue injection techniques.

Ms Heidi Davys
Heidi Davys is a Specialist Rheumatology Podiatrist in the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, a position she has held for the past 8 years. She has been awarded an Arthritis Research Campaign AHP Training Fellowship and is now working as a Research Fellow within the Section of Musculoskeletal Disease at the University of Leeds studying for a PhD. As part of the training fellowship and her PhD, she is embarking on a formal training program to develop skills in diagnostic ultrasound imaging techniques which will be utilised to study the painful forefoot in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

Dr Philip Helliwell
After an initial degree in psychology and physiology, Dr Philip Helliwell qualified in 1972 at the University of Oxford. Dr Helliwell received specialist training in nuclear medicine before spending 5 years in primary care. He was appointed as a consultant rheumatologist in 1990, and to an academic post in 1996. His current research program includes clinical subgroups and diagnostic criteria for psoriatic arthritis and clinical and biomechanical studies of foot/ankle in musculoskeletal disorders.

Dr Michael Burke
Dr Michael Burke graduated from Leicester in 1983 and has worked as a full time GP in Wirral since 1989. He became involved with the Primary Care Rheumatology Society in the mid 1990s and sat the Diploma of Primary Care Rheumatology at Bath University. He was the RCGP representative for the DOH Musculoskeletal Framework in 2006. He co-represented the RCGP on the NICE osteoarthritis guidelines 2008. Dr Burke has worked as a GPwSI in musculoskeletal medicine in Wirral since 2004. Married with three children, he enjoys cycling and playing music in a band.

Mr Paul Partington
Mr Paul Partington graduated from University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1987, and completed his basic and higher surgical training in the North East of England and Canada. He has been a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon in Northumbria since 1998. He has a keen interest in teaching and training and has been Training Programme Director for Trauma and Orthopaedics in the Northern Deanery for the last four years. Recently he was appointed to join the Specialist Advisory Committee for Trauma and Orthopaedics training. He is also the GP liaison representative for Trauma and Orthopaedics in the trust, including service development, referral triage and work on referral feedback. His clinical and research interests are adult hip and knee surgery, arthroplasty and arthroscopy, including hip arthroscopy.

Dr Richard Smith
Dr Richard Smith is a Consultant Rheumatologist at Salisbury Hospital. He trained in London and, following that, spent a year at the New South Wales Institute of Sports Medicine. He runs a multidisciplinary musculoskeletal and sports medicine clinic every week. In his spare time he is doctor to the World's Strongest Man and Superstars tournaments.

Dr Peter Lanyon
Dr Peter Lanyon qualified from Birmingham University in 1986, and initially trained in General Practice. However, this sparked his enthusiasm for musculoskeletal medicine, and he therefore decided to return to secondary care to re-train in Rheumatology. After completing research into the genetics of osteoarthritis, he was appointed to his current post of Consultant Rheumatologist at Queen’s Medical Campus, University Hospital in Nottingham in 1999, with a sub-specialty interest in multi-system inflammatory disease. He has retained strong links with Primary Care, and has also been a co-author and tutor for the Bath Diploma in Primary Care Rheumatology, as well as contributor to The Oxford Textbook of Medicine and Davidson’s Principles and Practice of Medicine.

Dr Inam Haq
Dr Inam Haq is a senior lecturer in rheumatology and medical education at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School at the University of Brighton. He has a keen interest in GP and undergraduate education, and is currently an external examiner in medicine for University Teaching Hospital, Lusaka and Queen Mary University of London Medical School. He has published widely on various aspects of musculoskeletal medicine, particularly the rheumatological manifestations of hepatitis C, which is one of his main research interests. He also co-edited the most recent edition of the Oxford Handbook of Rheumatology.