Conference Speakers and Panel Members

Chair of the Faculty of Pre-Hospital Care of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. She is a Consultant in Emergency Medicine at Dr Gray’s Hospital in Elgin where she established a consultant- led service; in addition, Dr Hardy is a Pre-Hospital and Retrieval Consultant for the Emergency Medical Retrieval Service (North) covering the remote highlands and islands of Scotland. She is an Examiner for the FIMC RCSEd and DIMC RCSEd and sits on the Pre-Hospital Examinations Board. Her contributions to pre-hospital care have been recognised with national and local awards.

Completed 36 years in the Royal Air Force and was RAF Adviser in Pre-Hospital Care from 1993 – 2013. Initially trained as a family practitioner and subsequently completed specialist aviation and occupational medicine training. He has been involved in the delivery and development of pre- hospital care since 1991 and has deployed to numerous military operations worldwide and taught for the Red Cross in Ecuador and civilian/military emergency services in Jordan. Dr Bruce is currently the Chair of the Training and Standards Committee and International Development Lead for the FPHC. His awards include MBE, Officer of the Order of St John and OBE.

International Director, Faculty of Disaster Medicine – India and Nepal. Dr Patel is Visiting Professor of Disaster Medicine at Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research (SRIHER), Chennai and joint Chair of the Academic Development Board for Disaster Medicine for SRIHER & Amrita Institute of Higher Education, Kochi. His scientific background led to him working in the biomedical and health care sectors bringing significant senior level teaching, management and leadership experience in academia and industry. He retired from fulltime UK NHS work in 2017 to lead on international work in Disaster medicine and improving Primary Care for developing countries with a focus on Commonwealth Countries.

Vice-Chancellor of Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research, Chennai. Prof Vijayaraghavan has more than 30 years’ experience as a practicing Orthopaedic Surgeon and undertook training in Switzerland, Australia and UK as well as being a Fulbright Scholar. He has exceptional in, and commitment to, medical education and previous posts have included Dean (Education) at SRU where he was responsible for curriculum development activities and engaged with India’s medical regulatory bodies. The Professor has been Vice-Chancellor of SRIHER since 2017.

Professor and Head of the Dept of Emergency Medicine at Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research; also, a Past President of the Society of Emergency Medicine, India. Currently, Prof Ramakrishnan is the Joint Chair of the Academic Board for the development of the Disaster Medicine Faculty – India and Nepal. He has been involved in the training of doctors and paramedics in emergency medicine and pre-hospital care since 2000; over 500 paramedics have been trained at his Institute and are now employed all over India and abroad.

Consultant in Emergency Medicine and Pre-hospital Emergency Medicine at Cambridge University Hospitals. A career emergency physician who considers emergency medicine a process rather than a physical place and who focuses on quality, safety and service improvement; this has allowed him to champion and lead developments in emergency medicine and pre-hospital emergency medicine locally, regionally and nationally in the UK. He has been medical director of an air ambulance charity, the clinical director of a regional Major Trauma Centre and the UK national sub-specialty development lead for Pre-Hospital Emergency Medicine.

Consultant in Emergency Medicine and a Senior Fellow with the Paediatric and Neonatal Decision Support and Retrieval (PaNDR) Service at Cambridge University Hospitals. Following Emergency Medicine Residency at Sundaram Medical Foundation, Chennai, she travelled to the UK to further develop her career aspirations in Pre-Hospital Emergency Medicine. She has worked for air ambulance and paediatric retrieval services in the UK and is undertaking formal sub-specialty training in Pre-Hospital Emergency Medicine. Formally trained in medical education and simulation, she is also an editorial review board member for the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.

Consultant Neurosurgeon and Professor of Brain Injury at Imperial College, Consultant Neurosurgeon and Pre-Hospital Care Specialist (Imperial College, KSS Air Ambulance) and a previous Honorary Professor of Pre-Hospital Care. His specialist areas are acute brain injury (mostly traumatic brain injury) and its very early management; his research focus is the hyper-acute management of brain injury and the physiological effects of hypoxia on the brain. He was awarded an OBE in 2020 for his work transforming the voluntary and emergency sectors with technology utilising a revolutionary platform that alerts doctors, nurses, paramedics and those trained in basic life support to respond to emergencies. He has worked extensively overseas in India, Nepal and South Africa. He was awarded the OBE in 2020 for his development of the GoodSam App.

Dr Subroto Das founded Lifeline Foundation along with his wife, Sushmita, after surviving a life- threatening accident in 1999 on one of India’s busiest highways, with the aim of reducing the 100,000+ annual highway deaths in India. He was the winner of one of India’s highest civilian awards, Padma Shri, for his work on Highway Trauma Care. In addition, Dr Subruto Das is a Founding Member of Asian Association for EMS and also the Chair of the South & Central Asian Chapters and has been part of various national and international policy making committees on pre-hospital and trauma care. His current focus is on actively advocating Bystander First Aid & CPR to enable common citizens to save lives in post-accident trauma and ‘out of hospital cardiac arrest’. He is the recipient of numerous other awards for his contributions to pre-hospital care including an Eisenhower Fellowship.

Dr Venugopalan is the Director and Lead Consultant in Emergency Medicine at Aster DM Healthcare, Calicut. He teaches and examines in emergency medicine and is committed to the development of trauma care, road safety, emergency medical services and pre-hospital care. As part of this commitment, he established the concept of community-based pre-hospital care and a community- based ambulance network in Kerala as well as formulating and publishing national EMS protocols. His recognition includes the APJ Abdul Kalam Leadership Award 2016.

Associated with Emergency Medicine for 18 years and currently Medical Director and General Manager of NURA. He was previously Medical Director and Consultant in Emergency Medicine at Premier Hospital Hyderabad as well as Head of the Dept of Emergency Medicine at Aster MedCity, Kochi. With a profound love of teaching, he helped to start the MRCEM training programme for postgraduates and also the BSc Emergency care Technology programme at Sundaram Medical Foundation, Chennai. He has been heavily involved in training in EM and pre-hospital care. Dr Thangalvadi is the recipient of many awards including Hero of India and a Bravery Award at SEMICON 2016 amongst others.

Consultant in Emergency Medicine and Critical Care, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi. He is the Clinical Lead for the General Hospital Medical ICU and Code Blue Team at the institute; in addition, Dr Sabarish is Lead Faculty for developing Disaster Medicine within the Faculty of Disaster Medicine – India and Nepal. He has published widely on his research.

Consultant in Emergency Medicine at Amrita Institute of Medical Science, Kochi and member of Faculty of Disaster Medicine – India. He is also Programme Coordinator for the BSc and MSc EMT Programmes and Clinical Lead for the Division of Transport Medicine; currently, Chair of the Hospital Resuscitation and Accident and Emergency Care Committees. Co-Editor of emergency medicine journals. His interests include pre-hospital medicine, toxicology and snake envenomation.

Prof Vijayasankar is Head of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Government Kilpauk Medical College, Chennai facilitating the implementation of Emergency Medicine as a concept. He is a Consultant in Anaesthetics and coordinated the introduction of a Trauma Registry as part of the National Health Mission; as part of this, Prof Vijayasankar devised modular training to support the concept in the city Medical Colleges in 2021. Following a visit by the National Medical Commission in 2022, and a consequent Letter of Permission, he aims to start an MD in Emergency Medicine course.

Head of the Department of Emergency Medicine at MS Ramaiah Medical College, Bengaluru. She is a Consultant in Anaesthetics and sits on the State Advisory Committee for Disaster Management. In addition, Prof Ramesh has been extensively involved in medical training for trauma management and is a key participant in HeartRescue India aimed at improving outcomes from cardiovascular events in the community.

Principal in General Practice in the north-west of England for 31 years and founder member of the Faculty of Disaster Medicine – India and Nepal. He has twice served as a government adviser at the English Department of Health and also held advisory positions with National Institute for Clinical Excellence and the Care Quality Commission. Professor Kingland was also key to the development of national Primary Care Networks author of a national programme to address health inequalities. He was awarded the OBE in 2012 for services to medicine and healthcare.

Dr Maharjan is Coordinator of the Nepal Disaster and Emergency Medicine Centre, Lalitpur Nepal. She trained at the China Three Gorges University in Hubei, Yichang. Her publications include co- authoring a Handbook of Advanced First Aid in 2018 and she undertook an analysis of online medical services availability during the COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal.