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Healthcare Scientist of the Year Awards 2007
  CSO Awards 2007 (Peter Wells).

This year Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS Medical Director and a former cardiac surgeon, and the Chief Scientific Officer (CSO), Professor Sue Hill, presented six awards to healthcare scientists, including two Fellows of IPEM.  The picture shows Professor Peter Wells and Dr Gail ter Haar with the Chief Scientific Officer (centre) after receiving their awards.

 

These were the 4th Chief Scientific Officer's Awards and were a highlight of the CSO conference (see report in this Newsletter).  They were started by Professor Hill because she wanted to highlight the many achievements of healthcare scientists, a workforce that often prefers to remain in the background.

 

Health Scientist of the Year Award for Innovation was awarded to Nicky Fleming, a Consultant Biomedical Scientist, for developing a primary care based service for patients on anti-coagulant therapies, like warfarin. The new service involves one five minute test followed by a dosing consultation when previously patients would need to have the test performed at a hospital out patient clinic, and wait for 3 days before the GP could revise their drug dosage. The judges were impressed by the inclusive partnership system brokered by Nicky, which works across healthcare divides, and the development of a service based on competency and not dependent on location or traditional workforce roles.

 

Frank Oliyide, a Biomedical Scientist, received the Health Scientist of the Year Award for Workforce Modernisation.   This is in recognition of his great leadership skills in bringing to fruition the Blood Sciences Laboratory at King's College Hospital, the largest integrated lab in Britain and the first in Europe, 'without blood on the carpet'. Previously the service had been run from 6 individual labs for biochemistry, haematology, coagulation, immunology, viral serology and antibiotic assay - all in different locations each with their own specimen reception areas.

 

Young Healthcare Scientist of the Year was awarded to Rachael Birch, a Clinical Molecular Geneticist at Yorkhill Children's Hospital, Glasgow for being responsible for developing a British mutation searching facility for SMEI, a rare form of infant epilepsy from early validation of testing to being a fully funded NHS service. Early diagnosis and drug treatment before seizure frequency develops can prevent the associated symptoms of autism and learning difficulties. 

 

Gail ter Haar, a medical physicist working at the Institute of Cancer Research was awarded Healthcare Scientist of the Year for Research and Innovation for her pioneering work in developing high intensity focused ultrasound - HIFU - from concept, using bench top lab studies, to clinical reality. This required understanding the biological and physical aspects, device engineering, the optimisation of treatment and systems for monitoring.  She has inspired more than 20 PhD students, developed research collaborations with a wide range of specialists - measurement scientists, surgeons, industry, both in Britain and abroad and has an international research reputation, including Honorary Professorships in Oxford and China. She has also made key contributions to ultrasound safety and is Chairman of the Safety Committee of the European Federation of Societies for Ultrasound in Medicine. 

 

The high quality entries in the Research and Innovation category led to the CSO also awarding a highly commended certificate to Dr David Gow, a world leading medical engineer in the research and development of upper limb prosthetic technology. This commendation was primarily for ProDigits, independent powered digits, developed through the NHS spin off company TouchBionics which conducted prototype development and now manufactures a range of sizes to fit children or adults, allowing them to achieve powered grasp for the first time.

 

Healthcare Scientist of the Year was awarded to Dr Christine McCartney, Director of the Health Protection Agency's Regional Microbiology Laboratories. It was awarded for the way in which she has delivered new services and improved new ones for the benefit of public health and her abilities in communicating so effectively with the public on complex scientific issues, such as C difficile, MRSA, Polonium 210.

 

Professor Peter Wells, First President and Honorary Fellow of IPEM, was this year's recipient of the Chief Scientific Officer's Lifetime Achievement Award. This was in recognition of his pioneering work in medical ultrasound and leading an outstanding research team that pushed forward the scientific and engineering boundaries, including the development of the first diagnostic scanner with an articulated arm, construction of a sensitive ultrasonic radiation force balance, the first water immersion ultrasonic breast scanner, the first catheter mounted endosonographic probe. He was one of the first to develop a pulsed Doppler system, describe the directivities of Doppler transducers and discover the potential for Doppler ultrasound to detect malignant tumour angiogenesis. In 2003 he was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society and he has been at the forefront of many professional bodies and learned societies, and editor in chief of the world journal, Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology.  Following his retirement as Chief Physicist at United Bristol Hospitals in 2001 his research into novel uses of ultrasound continues and he is currently Distinguished Research Professor in Cardiff University.

 

Report by Dr Diane Crawford, Honorary Secretary
 
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