Allergy

Consultant Paediatrician at West Herts Hospitals

Member of the British Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunolgy
Fellow of the Royal College of Paediatric and Child Health
Member of the London Paediatric Allergy Group
Member of the RheSCU (Rheumatology Shared Care Units) Group
Member of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons (Dublin)

As a parent and a paediatrician I am acutely aware how important it is for parents to have rapid access to a familiar paediatric health service practitioner. I respect that need and will always respond to patients as speedily and practically as possible, in both my NHS and private practice.

I have been a consultant in paediatrics since 1992. Immediately before that I trained in the tertiary centre of the Royal Hospital for Sick Children (RHSC) in Glasgow for the period between 1987 and 1992. I thoroughly enjoyed that period even though it was well before the merciful days of the European Working Time Directive (EWTD).

In addition to my interest in the variety of concerns that general paediatrics has to offer I am specially fascinated by immunological disorders and infantile medicine.

The immune system is not only involved in our good health but also in some important illnesses including: allergies, rheumatology, recurrent infections and many other organ disorders which can all happen as a result of the workings or lack of workings of the immune system I am the lead paediatrician for allergy and rheumatology services at the West Herts Hospitals.

With my neonatal origins, a special interest in infantile medicine has evolved. In practice I employ a natural investigative, patient, deliberate and unhurried approach to history taking to try and tease and collect those important clues about health in this early non-articulate but still communicative period of life. Hence I usually spend about 80% of the consultation time listening to parents and their babies. I try to make this process as enjoyable as possible, even for older age groups who on occasions require help to recall relevant symptoms.

I am married with four children, the youngest is two years old. In my free time I enjoy both non-fictional and fictional reading. I am also a gym enthusiast and poetry writer. As a non-professional writer I have to be moved to write. I am frequently moved by events, sights or thoughts about my wife, children and also my patients. My writing pen is also frequently triggered by thought provoking news, readings .. or by the stars.