I trained as a GP in the UK, and worked for the UK’s National Health Service for many years before moving to Canada in 2020. I’ve tried to focus on people who are vulnerable or marginalized. Currently I’m working mainly as a GP, emergency medicine doctor and hospital medical director serving the Heiltsuk and Kitasoo Xai’xais Nations at the ƛ̓uxválásu̓ilas Heiltsuk Hospital in Bella Bella, on a remote island in the British Columbian Pacific Ocean, three hundred miles northwest of Vancouver.

My other current medical work includes teaching for the University of British Columbia, and helping people near the ends of their lives with medical assistance in dying (MAiD). I’m a medical advisor to the BC Ministry of Health’s MAiD Oversight Unit. I’m also a mentor/coach with UBC’s rural medical coaching and mentoring program.

Alongside my medical career I worked for more than ten years as a legal aid barrister (trial lawyer) at Matrix Chambers in London, where I specialized in health-related human rights, public and administrative law. Acting mainly for people who were marginalized or vulnerable and for organizations representing them, I worked particularly in public law, immigration and asylum law, police and prison law, equality law, information law, inquests, and professional regulation, usually in cases with a health or medical twist, appearing in courts up to and including the UK Supreme Court.

I love teaching. I’ve taught and trained countless medical students and junior doctors (residents) on the job. I’ve taught medical students at three universities in the UK (Oxford, Newcastle and Lancaster) and at the University of British Columbia. I oversee our residents and other medical learners at ƛ̓uxválásu̓ilas Heiltsuk Hospital in Bella Bella.

I’ve given seminars and lectures, often on medical ethics and medical law, in the UK and internationally. For Primary Care International, I’ve worked with organizations such as the World Health Organization and the UN Refugee Agency to develop primary care services and train doctors and other healthcare workers in Africa, India and the Middle East.

For the England’s National Health Service I carried out the independent appraisals that are required annually of fully-qualified GPs.

I write a free, twice-monthly email (and podcast) about serenity and success, doing work that matters—sign up here. I’m writing a book on the same topic.

I had a couple of features published in The Guardian and The Independent (UK national newspapers) when I was a student, but I haven’t pursued journalism since.

A book I wrote, The Oxford Handbook of Patients’ Welfare (Oxford University Press, 1998), is now long out of print.

Zotero academic/scientific publications list.

I’ve provided consultancy ranging from improving student welfare services at a major British university to developing nurse-led primary care services in urban poor communities in India. I’ve sat on the boards of several national charities, been an elected councillor and chaired the majority political group of an English city council (local government), worked with a variety of health and legal organizations, and run successful businesses. I currently co-lead the medical staff and medical services in a small hospital.