Kevin Fong

Last updated

Kevin Fong
OBE MRCP FRCA
Born
Kevin Jeremy San Yoong Fong

(1971-05-21) 21 May 1971 (age 53) [1]
Brent, London, UK
Education Salvatorian College
Greenhill Tertiary College
Alma mater University College London (MBBS)
Cranfield University (MSc)
Awards Royal Institution Christmas Lectures (2015)
Scientific career
Fields Physiology
Anaesthesia
Space medicine
Institutions University College London
Air Ambulance Kent Surrey Sussex
Website www.uclh.nhs.uk/our-services/find-consultant/professor-kevin-fong OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

Kevin Jeremy San Yoong Fong (born 21 May 1971) [1] [2] is a British doctor and broadcaster. He is a consultant anaesthetist and anaesthetic lead for Major Incident Planning at UCL Hospitals. He is a professor at University College London [3] where he organises and runs an undergraduate course Extreme Environment Physiology. Fong also serves as a prehospital doctor with Air Ambulance Kent Surrey Sussex [ citation needed ] and specialises in space medicine [4] [5] in the UK and is the co-director of the Centre for Aviation Space and Extreme Environment Medicine (CASE Medicine), University College London.

Contents

Fong is best known for his television appearances, particularly as an occasional presenter of the long-running BBC2 science programme, Horizon . He presented the 2012 Channel 4 series Extreme A&E where he visited trauma centres all over the world. [6] In 2015, he presented the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, an annual series of lectures in front of a live audience of schoolchildren, and broadcast on BBC Four, with the subject How to Survive in Space. [7]

Early life

Fong was born in London and educated at St Anselm’s (Roman Catholic) primary school in Harrow on the Hill, followed by Salvatorian College, a Catholic state academy in Wealdstone and Greenhill Tertiary College [7] in Harrow, London. He holds Bachelor's degrees in astrophysics and medicine from University College London and a master's degree in astronautics and space engineering from Cranfield University.[ when? ]

Career

Fong has worked as a Consultant in anaesthesia and intensive care medicine at UCLH, and was co-founder and co-director of the Centre for Aviation, Space and Extreme Environment Medicine (CASE), [8] UCL Medical School. He is Professor of Innovation and Engagement for Science and Medecine in the Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy at University College London and an Honorary Lecturer in Physiology at King's College London.

Fong has also been a longstanding advocate of furthering the UK's involvement in international programmes of human space exploration. In 1999 he organised and hosted an international space biomedical conference at UCL, [9] with senior representatives from ESA, NASA and the British National Space Centre, to discuss strategies for furthering UK involvement in programmes of space biomedical research. He later launched the UK's first undergraduate course in Space Medicine and Extreme Environment Physiology and contributed to several high-level reviews of human space exploration strategy, including the UK Space Exploration Working Group (2007), the UK Space Exploration Review (2008) and the Royal Astronomical Society's Commission on the Scientific Case for Human Space Flight (2007).

His post-graduate medical training includes general medicine, emergency medicine, anaesthesia and intensive care medicine. He holds three postgraduate medical diplomas: Member of the Royal College of Physicians, Fellowship of the Royal College of Anaesthetists and Fellowship of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine.

He was a NESTA Fellow between 2003 and 2008. [10] During this time he took part in a diving expedition for Coral Cay and worked regularly with NASA as a visiting researcher with the Human Adaptation and Countermeasures Office at Johnson Space Center and occasionally with the medical group at Kennedy Space Center. It was during one of his visits to NASA that he completed his master's degree in Astronautics (co-supervised by Professor William H. Paloski, Director of NASA’s Space Life and Physical Sciences Research and Applications Division). [11]

In 2011 Fong was awarded The Wellcome Trust's first Public Engagement Fellowship, designed to give the awardees the freedom, resources and environment to enable innovative public engagement projects that examine, explore and debate the big scientific challenges faced by society. This was followed in 2016 by a senior fellowship award from the Wellcome Trust in Innovation and Engagement.

In March 2020, Kevin was seconded to NHS England as National Clinical Advisor in Emergency Preparedness Resilience and Response for the COVID-19 incident. [12]

In media

Fong was a guest in Material World , on 20 January 2000, where he argued for British participation in space travel research, particularly focusing on the long-term effects on the human frame. He presented Channel 4's science programme Superhumans in 2004, [13] an episode of Frontiers [14] on Radio 4, entitled Engineering Flu , and five episodes of the BBC documentary series Horizon . He also makes regular appearances for Health Check on BBC World Service [15] and has been interviewed in other programmes. [16]

Fong was featured in Esquire magazine's 2004 list UK's 100 Most Influential Men Under 40. [17]

He is the author of the 2014 book, Extreme Medicine: How Exploration Transformed Medicine in the Twentieth Century. [18] In July 2011, he wrote and presented Space Shuttle: The Final Mission (BBC), an hour-long documentary following the final mission of the Space Shuttle, meeting and interviewing those involved in the mission. He appeared as the resident scientist in the ITV series It's Not Rocket Science . [16] He has appeared as an expert guest on The One Show . [19]

He appeared in Operation Gold Rush with Dan Snow, 2016, following the route and trials and tribulations experienced by stampeders in the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 19th century. [16]

Fong presented the 2019 BBC World Service podcast 13 Minutes to the Moon, detailing the Apollo 11 Moon landing. A second series was released in 2020 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 13 mission. [20]

Awards and honours

In 2011, he was awarded a Wellcome Trust Public Engagement Fellowship. [21] [22]

He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2019 Birthday Honours for services to medicine and healthcare. [23]

On 6 August 2017, he was a guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs .

Fong presented the 2015 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, entitled How to survive in space. [7]

Fong is a member of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP) and a Fellow of the Royal College of Anaesthetists (FRCA).

Personal life

Fong lives in Brixton in South London, with his wife Dee and two sons. [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raj Persaud</span> English Psychiatrist

Rajendra 'Raj' Persaud FRCPsych is an English consultant psychiatrist, broadcaster and author of books about psychiatry. He is known for raising public awareness of psychiatric and mental health issues in the general media, has published five books and received numerous awards.

Geraint Ellis Rees is a British scientist who is Vice-Provost of research, innovation & global engagement at University College London (UCL). Previously he served as Dean of the UCL Faculty of Life Sciences, UCL Pro-Provost, Pro-Vice-Provost (AI) and a Professor of Cognitive Neurology at University College London. He is also a Director of UCL Business, a trustee of the Alan Turing Institute, a trustee of the Francis Crick Institute and a trustee of the Guarantors of Brain.

In the United Kingdom, operating department practitioners (ODPs) are allied healthcare professionals who are involved in the planning and delivery of perioperative care. As the name suggests, they are primarily employed in surgical operating departments, but they may also work directly within a variety of acute clinical settings, including pre-hospital emergency care, emergency departments, intensive care units (ICUs), endoscopy suites, interventional radiology, cardiac catheter suites, obstetric theatres and reproductive medicine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cambridge Biomedical Campus</span> Science park in Cambridge, UK

The Cambridge Biomedical Campus is the largest centre of medical research and health science in Europe. The site is located at the southern end of Hills Road in Cambridge, England.

Michael John Godfrey Farthing is British emeritus professor at the University of Sussex, where he was previously its vice-chancellor (2007–2016). His early academic career was in medicine, specialising in gastroenterology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Bolsin</span> British anaesthetist (born 1952)

Stephen Nicholas Cluley Bolsin is a British anaesthetist whose actions as a whistleblower exposed incompetent paediatric cardiac surgery at the Bristol Royal Infirmary leading to the implementation of clinical governance reforms in the United Kingdom.

UCLPartners is an academic health science centre located in London, England. It is the largest academic health science centre in the world, treats more than 1.5 million patients each year, has a combined annual turnover of around £2 billion and includes around 3,500 scientists, senior researchers and consultants.

The UCL Centre for the History of Medicine (UCLCHM) was an academic research and teaching centre for the history of medicine at University College London (UCL) in London. It succeeded the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL. The UCLCHM was founded in 2011, and from September 2011, it took over some of the former staff of the Wellcome Trust Centre at UCL, including four emeritus academic staff, six teaching staff, and associated staff in a number of other UCL departments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adam Rutherford</span> British geneticist, author, and broadcaster

Adam David Rutherford is a British geneticist and science populariser. He was an audio-visual content editor for the journal Nature for a decade, and is a frequent contributor to the newspaper The Guardian. He formerly hosted the BBC Radio 4 programmes Inside Science and The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry; has produced several science documentaries; and has published books related to genetics and the origin of life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stuart Cull-Candy</span> British neuroscientist

Stuart Graham Cull-Candy is a British neuroscientist. He holds the Gaddum Chair of Pharmacology and a personal Chair in Neuroscience at University College London. He is also a member of the Faculty of 1000 and held a Royal Society - Wolfson Research position.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tilli Tansey</span>

Elizabeth Matilda "Tilli" Tansey is a British neurochemist who is an Emerita Professor of the history of medicine and former neurochemist, best known for her role in the Wellcome Trust's witness seminars. She previously worked at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sophie Scott</span> British neuroscientist

Sophie Kerttu Scott is a British neuroscientist and Wellcome Trust Senior Fellow at University College London (UCL). Her research investigates the cognitive neuroscience of voices, speech and laughter particularly speech perception, speech production, vocal emotions and human communication. She also serves as director of UCL's Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience.

Michael G Hanna is Director of the UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London and professor in clinical neurology and consultant neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London, and also Director of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Centre for Neuromuscular Disease.

Aileen Kirkpatrick Adams is a British retired consultant anaesthetist. She turned 100 in September 2023.

Ramani Moonesinghe is Professor of Perioperative Medicine at University College London (UCL) and a Consultant in Anaesthetics and Critical Care Medicine at UCL Hospitals. Moonesinghe was Director of the National Institute for Academic Anaesthesia (NIAA) Health Services Research Centre between 2016 and 2022, and between 2016 and 2019 was Associate National Clinical Director for Elective Care for NHS England. In 2020 on she took on the role of National Clinical Director for Critical and Perioperative care at NHS England and NHS Improvement.

Sharon Jayne Peacock is a British microbiologist who is Professor of Public Health and Microbiology in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge, and Master of Churchill College, Cambridge.

Judith Hulf is a British anaesthetist. She was the president of the Royal College of Anaesthetists from 2006 to 2009.

In the United Kingdom, an anaesthesia associate (AA) is a healthcare worker who provides anaesthesia under the medical direction and supervision of a consultant anaesthetist. Anaesthesia associates are not doctors themselves, but rather enter the role by completing a 27-month full-time training programme which leads to the award of a postgraduate diploma, or alternatively a 24-month training programme via University College London leading to a master's degree. The University of Birmingham, University College London and Lancaster University deliver General Medical Council approved courses to qualify and register as an AA. It is classed as a medical associate profession. To be eligible, a candidate must have a previous degree in a biomedical or science subject, or recognised previous healthcare experience in another role. There is usually high demand for posts when advertised, with high application to places ratios. Recruitment is usually undertaken directly by the NHS employer, before enrolling with on a chosen course.

Hugo Critchley is a British professor of psychiatry at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, a partnership of the University of Brighton and the University of Sussex.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Stoddart</span> English anaesthetist and intensive care specialist (1932–2019)

Joseph Charles Stoddart was an English anaesthetist and intensive care specialist, who played a significant role in the development of intensive care in the UK. He spent most of his career at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle upon Tyne, where he established one of the UK's earliest dedicated intensive care units in 1970. He was a founding member and early chair of the Intensive Care Society.

References

  1. 1 2 "Kevin FONG born May 1971". gov.uk. Archived from the original on 17 March 2022.
  2. ↑ Ancestry.com. England & Wales, Birth Index: 1916–2005 [database on-line]. Provo, Utah, US: Ancestry.com Inc, 2008. Original data: General Register Office. England and Wales Civil Registration Indexes. London, England: General Register Office.
  3. ↑ "Professor Kevin Fong". nhs.uk. Archived from the original on 6 January 2021.
  4. ↑ Fong, K. J. (2010). "Risk management, NASA, and the National Health Service: Lessons we should learn". British Journal of Anaesthesia. 105 (1): 6–8. doi: 10.1093/bja/aeq139 . PMID   20551024.
  5. ↑ Fong, K. J.; Arya, M.; Paloski, W. H. (2007). "Gender differences in cardiovascular tolerance to short radius centrifugation". Journal of Gravitational Physiology. 14 (1): P15–P19. PMID   18372686.
  6. ↑ "Extreme A&E - Episode Guide". channel4.com. Archived from the original on 9 March 2016.[ dead link ]
  7. 1 2 3 4 "Kevin Fong". rigb.org. The Royal Institution. Retrieved 28 December 2015.
  8. ↑ "Dr Kevin Fong". case-medicine.co.uk.
  9. ↑ "Podium: Britain must join the manned space programme". Independent.co.uk . 8 December 1999.
  10. ↑ "Fellowship programme - 15 years of". Nesta. Archived from the original on 18 November 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
  11. ↑ "Dr. William Paloski". Uh.edu. 16 May 2013. Archived from the original on 5 May 2014. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
  12. ↑ "NHS England » Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPRR)".
  13. ↑ "Review of 2004; Physician Dr Kevin Fong in Superhuman" (PDF). Channel 4.
  14. ↑ Frontiers: Engineering Flu - BBC Radio 4
  15. ↑ "BBC Radio 4 - A Trip Around Mars with Kevin Fong". Bbc.co.uk. 27 March 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
  16. 1 2 3 Kevin Fong at IMDb   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
  17. ↑ Alison Roberts (6 August 2008). "Beijing on Thames". standard.co.uk. Evening Standard . Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  18. ↑ Extreme Medicine: How Exploration Transformed Medicine in the Twentieth Century ISBN   1594204705
  19. ↑ Wells, Sarah (2020). "Immunotherapy goes viral: ICR research on cancer-killing viruses featured on BBC's The One Show". icr.ac.uk. Institute of Cancer Research. Archived from the original on 22 October 2020. Retrieved 19 October 2020.
  20. ↑ "BBC World Service – 13 Minutes to the Moon". bbc.co.uk. BBC.
  21. ↑ "Engaging Fellows: Kevin Fong". wellcome.ac.uk. Wellcome Trust. 23 February 2012. Archived from the original on 6 July 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
  22. ↑ "Wellcome Trust | Wellcome Trust". Wellcome.ac.uk. 19 July 2011. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
  23. ↑ "No. 62666". The London Gazette (Supplement). 8 June 2019. p. B11.
Media offices
Preceded by Royal Institution Christmas Lecturer
2015		Succeeded by
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.