Meet Our Wonderful Speakers

Dr. Sapna Kudchadkar

Dr. Sapna Kudchadkar is the Anesthesiologist-in-Chief of the Johns Hopkins Children's Center and Vice Chair for Pediatric Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She is a professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine, pediatrics and physical medicine and rehabilitation at JHUSOM. Her areas of interest include sleep disturbances in critically ill children, pediatric delirium prevention and management, sedation of mechanically ventilated children, pediatric ICU rehabilitation and mobility, and clinical epidemiology and biostatistics.  

A practicing pediatric intensivist and anesthesiologist, she completed residencies in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Children's Center and in anesthesiology at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, followed by clinical fellowships in pediatric critical care and pediatric anesthesiology. Dr. Kudchadkar received her PhD in clinical investigation at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Her primary research focus is the integration of sleep promotion, sedation optimization and delirium prevention to promote early mobility and improve functional outcomes for survivors of pediatric critical illness. Dr. Kudchadkar is the lead PI for the international PARK-PICU study (Prevalence of Acute Rehab for Kids in the PICU, park.web.jhu.edu), which includes >200 sites in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Europe and Australia. She is also the lead PI for an NIH funded 10-hospital stepped-wedge cluster-randomized trial of a multifaceted early mobility program for critically ill children (PICU Up!; NCT04989790) and MPI for an NIH-funded multicenter randomized trial investigating physical rehabilitation and nutrition in pediatric ICU patients (PROXIMUS; NCT05296096)

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Professor Rob Mac Sweeney

Rob Mac Sweeney is an intensivist at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, an Honorary Professor of Practice at Queen’s University Belfast, and the
founder of Critical Care Reviews, a not-for-profit evidence dissemination platform. Best known for his work with Critical Care Reviews, Rob has spent the past 15 years sharing science with the global critical care community through the platform’s website, newsletter, book, and podcast. The Critical Care Reviews Meeting is a niche trials-focused event, presenting major results in Belfast and Melbourne each June and December.

Professor Calum Semple OBE

Calum  has studied severe viral outbreaks since 1989, co-founding the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC) in 2012. He has led research on HIV, Bronchiolitis, Influenza, Ebola, Mpox, COVID-19 and Hepatitis, supported by Wellcome, NIHR and UKRI MRC. He is the Chief Investigator for the Bronchiolitis Endotracheal Surfactant Study (BESS) and the ISARIC / WHO Clinical Characterisation Protocol UK. As a Respiratory Physician at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, he heads the regional service for Hereditary Haemorrhagic Telangiectasia. He has served as a UK Government advisor on NERVTAG 2014-2023,  SAGE-COVID-19 2020-2022, and the WHO Scientific Advisory Committee for the Ebola Emergency 2014-2017. He was appointed OBE in 2020 and Fellowship of the Faculty of Public Health Fellowship in 2022 by distinction

Professor Lorna Fraser

Professor Lorna Fraser  is Professor of Palliative Care and Child Health at Kings College London and an NIHR Research Professor. She is a researcher in paediatric palliative care with a portfolio of grants from major funders (>£20 million), including three National Institute for Health and Care Research Fellowships. She was the founding Director of the highly successful Martin House Research Centre - a multi-disciplinary centre for research on the care and support of children and young people with life-limiting conditions or medical complexity, their families and the workforce that cares for them. She currently leads several national studies of paediatric palliative care research including ENHANCE – the national evaluation of end of life care for children. Her work has influenced national policy on PPC, children's palliative care funding, and vaccine prioritisation for children with COVID. She is committed to building capacity within the PPC sector and meaningful PPI with this population of children and their families.

Dr. Toyin Ocholi

Toyin is a Paediatric Intensive Care Consultant at the Royal Brompton Hospital, a cardio-respiratory ICU and part of Evelina London Children’s Hospital. Her areas of interest include cardiac intensive care having completed fellowships in cardiac intensive care, cardiology and transport at Great Ormond Street Hospital and The Royal Brompton Hospital.  Toyin also has an interest in education, particularly involving in-situ simulation. She has been on the team of PICU Journal Watch for 3 years. 

Dr Dani Hall (she/her)

​Dani Hall is a Paediatric Emergency Medicine (PEM) consultant in Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) in Dublin. She’s also an Executive Director of Don’t Forget The Bubbles (DFTB), Senior Lecturer in the joint DFTB and Queen Mary University of London PEM MSc; simulation lead across the four clinical sites of CHI; and clinical lead for the three time award-winning CHI Rainbow Badge initiative, improving access to health for LGBTQ+ young people.

Professor Padmanabhan Ramnarayan

Padmanabhan Ramnarayan (Ram) is a Professor of Paediatric Critical Care in the Department of Surgery and Cancer at Imperial College and Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Intensive Care at St Mary's Hospital London. He holds several local and national roles such as the Deputy Director of the Imperial Centre for Paediatrics and Child Health (PaeCH), Lead for the UK NIHR supported Incubator for paediatric critical care and Chair of the UK Paediatric Critical Care Society Study Group (PCCS-SG). He has published extensively (>150 peer reviewed papers) including in high-impact journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, and JAMA as well as Pediatric Critical Care Medicine and Critical Care. He sits on the Editorial Board of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine, the Action Medical Research Scientific Grant review panel, and reviews regularly for the NIHR and high-impact journals.

His main research interests are pragmatic clinical trials (particularly related to paediatric ventilation), critical care epidemiology, novel biomarkers for infection (breath, blood) and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to improve decision-making in critically ill children. He led the FIRST ABC trials, the first multicentre trials comparing high flow nasal cannula therapy with CPAP in the post-extubation and step-up (acutely ill) populations. He is currently leading the BACHb trial in bronchiolitis comparing humidified oxygen and CPAP with high-flow in the moderate and severe bronchiolitis populations. He has held grant funding in excess of £15 million over the past decade. He is passionate about building research capacity and enhance mentoring opportunities for younger researchers in his speciality, especially through the NIHR Incubator.

Dr. Susie Willis

Susie completed her Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the University of Surrey in 2010. Upon qualification she worked at University College London Hospital, before moving to Northern Ireland and the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children (RBHSC)
in 2011. She has worked at RBHSC in the paediatric psychology service since this time and is currently working as one of the specialist psychologists for the regional children's cancer unit. Susie provides teaching on the Queens University Belfast (QUB) Clinical Psychology Doctorate course, as well as being involved in research at both QUB and University of Ulster. One of these research areas is the use of Tetris to prevent and support intrusive memories (flashbacks) in parents following their
child's admission to PICU.

Susie is incredibly passionate about the role clinical psychologists have in supporting children, young people and their families who are looked after by paediatric intensive care units - as well as the staff who work on these teams. Clinical psychologists are trained to work alongside other staff groups and can offer psychological support and consultation to work with, and hopefully prevent, moral distress, compassion fatigue and burnout in staff.

Special interests include haematology/oncology, PICU, paediatric palliative care, bereavement, adolescent medicine, trauma, staff support, moral and ethical decision-making processes within paediatrics, and the impact on attachment of hospitalisation in children and young people.

Chris Paget

Chris Paget, Lead Pharmacist for Paediatric Critical Care, Theatres and Surgery at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, also serves as Information Officer for the Neonatal and Paediatric Pharmacy Group and is an Honorary Lecturer in Paediatric Pharmacy Practice at The University of Manchester. He has over 15 years’ experience working in secondary and tertiary paediatric services.

Chris has a particular interest in best practice use of parenteral nutrition in paediatric critical care and how education and training of the multidisciplinary team can contribute to this goal.  

Peter McBride

Peter McBride has over 30 years’ experience as a senior leader, personal coach and organisational consultant.  His career has involved leading large and complex organisations latterly as the Group Chief Executive of Inspire in Ireland and then Director of The Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies in New Hampshire US.  Since 2018, Peter has worked predominantly through his own company as a Personal and Organisational Consultant.  His senior leadership experience adds profoundly to the effectiveness of his coaching and consultancy work, giving him the practical insights to understand the political and practical complexities of leading large organisations.

Peter’s experience of working with individuals and organisations over this time has given him a deep insight into the psychological and practical challenges facing our most senior leaders, and his approach is grounded in compassion, understanding and a commitment to creating meaning out of complexity and finding pragmatic solutions to “wicked”, intractable problems.  He has served on and chaired multiple boards, most recently BBC Children in Need, The Wheel and NICVA, stepping down only to take up his role in the US.  

Peter has worked across the private, public and voluntary sectors providing strategic leadership, and support.  With a wealth of expertise and experience Peter now works across several large projects, that carry significant public interest and attention, and with senior leaders to provide support and add insight to their work.  His areas of expertise include workplace wellbeing, conflict resolution, mental health, trauma and its impact on the workplace and in society, and individual resilience and professional development.  Peter’s experience and expertise have allowed him to work internationally in such areas as South Sudan with USAID, Rwanda, The USA and locally on openness and candour in the NI health system.  Peter is a popular and well-known conference speaker and facilitator, and a sought-after personal coach and consultant for senior executives, and large complex organisations.

Sr. Carol McCormick

Dual professional qualifications in Adult and Children’s nursing with clinical experience across a
range of clinical settings
Experience in  nursing in adult critical care, thoracic and vascular surgery  (a very long time ago,
don’t even know if worth mentioning )
Have worked in a variety of specialities within paediatrics, although most of my career has been
spent in critical care as I have always found it most challenging and rewarding.
Until recently was part of the NISTAR team, also assisted with teaching at QUB on Care of the 
Critically Ill Child module.
Author of chapter on Closed Head Injury, Care Planning in Children and Young Peoples Nursing.

Dr. Rory Maguire

Rory is a pain consultant specialising in both adult and paediatric complex pain. He trained in Northern Ireland, London and Sydney before returning to Belfast, where as a consultant, he maintained a multi-disciplinary paediatric pain service. In 2020, Rory took up a post with Children’s Health Ireland to establish a national children’s pain service. Together with colleagues, Rory recently received a funding grant from the Children’s Health Foundation to develop the first intensive paediatric pain rehabilitation programme in Ireland. Rory is on the board of the faculty of pain medicine and has authored a national model of care for paediatric chronic pain services. Rory’s ambition is to make timely and comprehensive interdisciplinary pain management accessible to all children in Ireland. 

Dr Pádraic Dunne

Dr Pádraic J. Dunne (Senior Lecturer/US: Associate Professor) is an immunologist (research scientist), psychotherapist, and board-certified lifestyle medicine professional, based at the RCSI Centre for Positive Health Sciences (CPHS). As Principal Investigator of the Digital Health Research Group within the Centre, Pádraic is interested in the development of health coach-led health and wellbeing programmes for Irish communities, secondary school students, healthcare professionals, and those with a chronic disease diagnosis. Pádraic is Co-director of the Centre’s MSc in Positive Health Coaching and Director of the Micro-credential course: An Introduction to Lifestyle Medicine.

https://people.rcsi.com/padraicdunne

Professor Kevin Morris

Kevin Morris worked as a Consultant in PICU at Birmingham Children’s Hospital for 23 years before retiring from UK clinical practice in 2020. He leads the GIRFT PCC clinical workstream, having undertaken a detailed review of all PICU providers and Operational Delivery Networks across England and published a national report (2022) with a series of recommendations for service improvement. He spent two years after retirement working in Malawi as a volunteer paediatrician and continues to visit for 2-3 months each year.

During his career he has held a several national roles including RCPCH CSAC Chair, PICS President, Chair of PCC HRG Expert Working Group, lead for RCPCH ‘High Dependency Care – time to move on’ project, and lead for development of PICS Quality Standards 2015.

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In addition to over 100 publications, he has played an active role in developing UK-wide PCC audit and research initiatives and in developing PCC researchers for the future.

Louisa Fee

​I qualified as solicitor in September 2004 from the Institute of Professional Legal Studies at Queen’s University Belfast. I was an associate solicitor in Private Practice from my qualification until October
2017 where I specialised in family and criminal law. In November 2017 I took up the position of Legal Director to the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland. While holding this role I was appointed to the Civil Appeals Panel for the Legal Services Agency for Northern Ireland, Legal Member of the Review Tribunal for Northern Ireland and as a Parole Commissioner for Northern Ireland. I was also appointed to the National Appeal Panel of the Department of Health and was Deputy Chair of the Scrutiny Committee for the Pharmaceutical Society for Northern Ireland.
I was appointed as a Coroner for Northern Ireland on 17 September 2021.

Dr. Neil Spenceley

Neil Spenceley is the Director of Paediatric Intensive Care and Anaesthetics in Glasgow and the former Scottish Patient Safety Lead for Paediatrics. He is originally from The Highlands, trained in Edinburgh but soon defected West to start his somewhat bumpy career at Glasgow Children's. After living in Tauranga, Sydney and Vancouver he bizarrely returned to Glasgow where the weather is terrible but the people are positive and funny. His physiological interests include oxygen delivery, this and that but mostly that. However, his psychological interests, and real passion, lie in workplace behaviours, culture, resilience engineering and being glass half full.