I am a Consultant Anaesthetist at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre in Riyadh, where I have worked since 2016 and have been Section Head of Paediatric Anaesthesia since 2024. Before that I was a consultant in Belfast, and I trained in India and then in Northern Ireland. Most of my working week is paediatric and neonatal anaesthesia, and ultrasound-guided regional anaesthesia is my particular interest.
Teaching has been part of every job I have had, from the Final FRCA courses I helped organise in Belfast to the residents' Teacher of the Year award in Riyadh in 2017, and the tools on this site are the same work by other means, for trainees to use in their own time, on a phone. The other habit is reading the evidence behind what we do every day and writing about it, which I do on LinkedIn and, at more length, on Substack.
Since the summer of 2026 I have also been building small teaching apps with AI. I have no training in software. Whether a clinician who cannot code should be building anything at all is a fair question, and my answer so far is that it is reasonable if every build is checked meticulously and stress-tested more than once, which is how the apps on this site were made.
For hospitals
Current post
Consultant Anaesthetist, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre, Riyadh, since April 2016. Elective and emergency tertiary paediatric and neonatal anaesthesia, including transplant and oncology, with supervision of residents and fellows; one of a twelve-person paediatric subsection; the on-call rota includes the emergency vascular access service. Adult and paediatric ENT and eye surgery, maxillofacial, orthopaedic and plastic surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, neurosurgery, and anaesthesia outside theatre for MRI, angiography, radiotherapy and interventional radiology.
Roles held
- Section Head, Paediatric Anaesthesia, KFSHRC, since September 2024 (reappointed in 2026)
- Anaesthesia Medical Quality Director, KFSHRC, January 2023 to December 2025
- Anaesthesia rota coordinator, KFSHRC, 2020 to 2022
- Obstetric Anaesthetic Pre-Assessment Clinical Lead, Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, 2011 to 2016
Earlier posts
- Consultant Anaesthetist with an interest in obstetric and regional anaesthesia, Belfast Health and Social Care Trust (Royal Victoria, Musgrave Park and Mater hospitals), September 2011 to March 2016
- Consultant posts earlier in 2011 at the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust (Ulster and Downpatrick hospitals) and, as a locum, at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast
- Anaesthesia training in Northern Ireland, 2004 to 2011 (Belfast City, Altnagelvin, Royal Victoria, Mater and Ulster hospitals), including a clinical fellowship in obstetric anaesthesia at the Royal Jubilee Maternity Hospital, 2008 to 2009
- Junior and senior resident, Department of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care, PGIMER, Chandigarh, 2001 to 2004
Special interest
Ultrasound-guided regional anaesthesia: single-shot and continuous peripheral nerve, plexus and central neuraxial blocks
Qualifications and registration
- MBBS, Medical College Trivandrum, University of Kerala, 1999
- MD Anaesthesia, PGIMER Chandigarh, 2003 (thesis on haemostatic changes with intraoperative hydroxyethyl starch)
- DNB Anaesthesiology, National Board of Examinations, New Delhi, 2004
- FCARCSI, College of Anaesthetists, Dublin, 2006
- FRCA, Royal College of Anaesthetists, London, 2006
- CCT in Anaesthetics, UK, January 2011
- GMC full registration and Specialist Register; registered with the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties
Teaching
- Teacher of the Year 2017, chosen by the anaesthesia residents, KFSHRC
- Departmental tutor, Queen's University Belfast, 2009 to 2010: Final FRCA and FCARCSI exam courses, simulation teaching and OSCE examining for fourth-year medical students on the perioperative and emergency medicine module
- Trust mentoring scheme, Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast
- The teaching apps on this site, 2026
Research
Ongoing: a randomised, placebo-controlled phase III trial of dexmedetomidine and midazolam as premedication in children
A full CV is available on request. The quickest way to reach me is on the Write to me page.
What I am doing now (October 2026)
I am staying on as Section Head of Paediatric Anaesthesia for another two years, alongside my clinical work in paediatric and neonatal anaesthesia. Outside theatre, the guideline tracker gets a check for new guidelines every month, the newsletter is up and running, and I am putting every card in the tracker to the six-model checker to find out which edition of each guideline the models believe is current. The next app, on viscoelastic tests of clotting, is being rebuilt until it is good enough to put out.