I have a predominant interest in cleft lip and palate surgery.

I grew up in Surrey having been born in 1954 in Kingston, and travelled from Ewell to school in Wimbledon. From a very early age I was interested in medicine as a career.

I went to medical school at St Thomas’s Hospital in London with a course which bore more resemblance to ‘Doctor in the House’ of Dirk Bogarde’s fame than anything which students experience today. A brief interlude of a year studying Psychology at Bedford College in Regent’s Park for BSc gave me more time to woo Kate, who I had already met at home but had gone to Exeter for 3 years to undertake her degree. I left St Thomas’s in 1978 and became a General Surgical Registrar in 1981 for 2 years at the (now defunct) Brook Hospital in Shooters Hill, South East London.

In 1983 Kate and I went to Tanzania for 2 years to work in a mission hospital at Mvumi (near Dodoma in mid Tanzania) but a delayed work permit had led to a temporary SHO post in plastic surgery before leaving. The SHO experience in plastics changed my approach to surgery for good, and on return, I trained at Mount Vernon, Northwood, UCH London and Queen Mary’s Roehampton as a plastic surgeon.

In 1991 I was appointed to the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford as a consultant. The following year I returned to East Africa on a trip arranged by Prof Eldryd Parry’s International Health Consortium (another metamorphosed organisation, which is part of THET). That visit to Uganda included a trip to Mbarara in the west, during which 3 other surgeons and I stumbled across an enthusiastic couple teaching students at the small medical school there. A lasting friendship with the Hodges was born. I returned on several occasions subsequently and discovered a major talent in both Andrew and Sarah for managing reconstructive problems.

I was honoured and delighted to be invited to become e trustee of Interface in 2006 and hope that by formally becoming part of the organisation I can be used for support and develop its activities as much as possible in the coming years.

Consultant anaesthetist at Birmingham Heartlands and Solihull Hospitals, Heart of England NHS Trust. Born and raised in the Midlands. Qualified at University College London and UCH. Anaesthetic training in East Anglia and the West Midlands. Met Andrew and Sarah in the late 80’s when they were training at Birmingham Heartlands, they asked me to help in Uganda in 2000. Have been visiting every year since then. I would like every trainee to spend time working in similar circumstances. It has been a great priviledge and a wonderful experience working with Interface Uganda, and being a trustee.

Professional Interests: Obstetric, orthopaedic, ENT and paediatric anaesthesia. Considerable educational commitments: Royal College examiner and Programme director for specialist registrar training.

After over 20 years with Barclays in the UK and then in Zimbabwe and Egypt, my last position being CEO Barclays Egypt, I moved to run a banking group in Uganda and from there, in 2006, to the role of Africa Region MD for Opportunity International, a large Christian Microfinance Network with operations in 27 countries including 9 in Africa. I am based in Kampala, Uganda with my wife and 3 children and as should be clear by now, have no medical experience. I am delighted to join the team of Trustees and hope to bring an alternate but complimentary perspective to the great and necessary work they do in Uganda.

I grew up in London, and trained as a nurse there in the early 1980s. I met my husband, Vikram Devaraj, when we both worked at Brook Hospital in South London. I then moved to Cambridge and qualified as a midwife. Vikram and I got married in 1987. Between 1987 and 1995, we moved around a lot whilst Vikram undertook various surgical rotations. We both worked in Bristol (where our daughter Rebecca was born) and then lived in Leeds (and had our son, Alex). We also spent a couple of years in Oxford, before finally moving to Exeter in 1995. I met Andrew and Sarah Hodges when Andrew was a trainee plastic surgeon at the RD&E and became interested in the work he and Sarah were doing in Uganda. When the Hodges’ family moved to Uganda in 2004, I volunteered to take on the administrative role for the charity and the trustees agreed to this. My role is pretty varied, from collecting equipment to ship to Uganda in huge containers, to managing the charity’s finances, to supporting fundraisers. A key part of of my role is to promote and keep supporters updated with Interface Uganda’s latest news, activities and events. I work with a small but brilliant team of volunteers and enjoy this immensely. I am also employed part time at Exeter Citizens Advice Bureau and am currently Chair of Governors at Silverton Primary School.