Who We Are
What is the UK Frostbite Care
The UK Frostbite Care is a specialist group of clinicians with an interest in delivering better understanding, prevention and treatment of frostbite.
Current UK Frostbite Care Members
Prof Chris Imray
University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust
Chris is an academic vascular / transplant surgeon at Warwick Medical School. He is an active mountaineer and polar traveller whose research interests are in the (patho)-physiology of extreme cold and altitude. He set up the UK British Mountaineering Council internet frostbite service in 2004 with Dr David Hillebrandt and Dr Paul Richards. He is co-director of Polar Guides https://polar-guides.com
Clinical expertise: 20 plus years running the UK Frostbite service with experience the field treatment of frostbite, intermediate care, hospital care, iloprost infusions and developing novel treatments for severe frostbite. He has 100 plus cold and altitude peer review papers, teaches polar medicine courses and is co-author
Contact:
+447976301614
Dr Sarah Hollis
Ministry of Defence, Catterick Garrison
Sarah is the UK Defence Lead for the prevention and clinical management of cold injury. Sarah is a GP with extended practice in occupational medicine and pre-hospital care in remote and austere environments. She represents UK on NATO fora and regularly collaborates with international civilian and military colleagues on all aspects of peripheral cold injury.
Clinical expertise: Advising the British Military on the management of both freezing cold and non-freezing cold injuries
Monica Piris MBChB DiMM
Monica has been working as a doctor on expeditions to extreme altitude since 2007. She has been on more than 20 expeditions to some of the world’s highest peaks including Everest, Lhotse, Cho Oyo, Makalu and Manaslu where her work has ranged from monitoring team members’ health throughout the expedition, treating locals and visitors for common illnesses, to treating frostbite and potentially fatal altitude related illnesses and offering diagnostic and therapeutic advice over the radio for unwell climbers being rescued above 8000m. Nowadays, with the vast improvement in communication options, she continues to offer medical cover for high altitude expeditions remotely.
Monica’s “day job” is as a part time clinical fellow in Emergency Medicine for Oxford University Hospitals Trust.
Monica can offer advice in English, Spanish and French.
Dave Strachan
Army Vascular Registrar, BASICS and Mountain Rescue Doctor, event and expedition medic. Dave has worked and climbed across mountain ranges on 5 continents. From a background in Scottish Mountain Rescue and as a winter climber, he has developed an interest in cold injury as a way to marry the mountains and the limb salvage aspects of his day job in Vascular Surgery. He has an interest in trauma, prehospital critical care and the pathways of care from prevention to point of injury and through rescue to rehabilitation.
Jonathon Will Bsc (Hons) PGCert MPara
Jonathon is a paramedic and healthcare leader with a career spanning frontline Pre-Hospital and Trauma Unit emergency care in London to national clinical & strategic roles in Scotland. After training with the London Ambulance Service in 2008, he worked in both pre-hospital and hospital settings before returning to rural Scotland, focusing on remote and urgent care. He now leads Urgent and Unscheduled Care for a Scottish health board. He is also a qualified Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician, Mountain Rescue Remote Rescue Medical Technician course director, WEMSI & Unique Expedition faculty member, the Tayside Mountain Rescue Medical Officer and active Mountain rescue team member.
Dr Sean Hudson MBE
Sean is a GP and prehospital care physician in the north of England. He has spent 4 seasons in Antarctica with the largest commercial organisation on the continent and is one of the military clinical leads for cold injury in the UK with a particular interest in trauma care in cold environments.