Dr Paul Wood

Consultant Anaesthetist – Birmingham Accident Hospital

  • Held a senior registrar position in the North East
    • Had a year a Visiting Assistant Professor of Anaesthesiology at UCSF
    • Gained trauma experience in San Francisco General Hospital
  • Joined the Accident Hospital in 1993
  • His consultant appointment involved anaesthesia for trauma, burns and plastic surgery
  • He also shared with three other colleague’s responsibility for the Major Injuries Unit
  • Unfortunately, the timing of his appointment closely coincided with the planned closure of the Accident Hospital and the transfer of the trauma service to the Birmingham General Hospital.
  • Despite the very short period within the Accident Hospital he learnt some key lessons which were fundamental in shaping my subsequent career interests and development
  • The Accident Hospital demonstrated the importance of communication, cohesive team working, and operating within an institution of a manageable size.
    • A failure of these factors became synonymous with much of what he observed elsewhere in the NHS in the later stages of his career.
  • It was instructive to realise in retrospect that much of the UK Defence Medical Services subsequent modelling of trauma care, and in particular their command of what we now term human factors encapsulated much of how the Accident Hospital functioned.
  • In the short period he was ‘resident’ within the Accident Hospital the ATLS programme of trauma care was in its ascendency. With the cooperation of his consultant colleagues he was able to influence aspects of ATLS airway management which he felt were unsatisfactory for UK practice.
  • He was also able to establish a good working relationship with attached medics from the armed forces and also personnel from the West Midlands Fire Service.
  • These professional and personal liaisons predated and influenced his later contribution to the care of injured UK personnel during the Afghanistan conflict of 2002– 2014.
  • Upon reflection he was always insistent that the involvement with Armed Forces medicine had been the highlight of his professional life – the seeds for this experience having been planted at the Accident Hospital.