Sarah Jarvis

Sarah is a GP, GP trainer and fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners.
She is also a medical writer and broadcaster, and is currently the BBC Radio 2 doctor and doctor to the One Show on BBC1, Good Housekeeping, My Weekly and AXA PPP magazines, as well as spending 10 years as ITN lunchtime News doctor.

She also contributes regularly to Daybreak, Sky News and BBC Radio 5 live. She has been a regular contributor to a variety of medical magazines and journals including Update, Doctor, Practice Nurse, the British Journal of Cardiology and Cardiology News.

She has been the Women’s Health spokesperson for the RCGP and chair of the Health Care Committee of HEART UK (the cholesterol charity) and has written several books including The Welcome Visitor, on the ethics of dying co-authored with John Humphrys

Specialised areas:

• Women’s’ health
• Medicines, their effective and safe use
• Human Genetics

Current positions:

• Three quarter time partner in General Practice
• Regular doctor on BBC’s Breakfast programme
• Weekly column in the Daily Express and “S” magazine
• Woman and Home, Tesco Healthy Living magazines

Profile:

• Rosemary trained in medicine at Cambridge University and St Thomas Hospital Medical School.
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• She lives with her two sons and enjoys gardening, ski-ing, hiking, and sailing.
• She was awarded an M.B.E. for her services to healthcare in the New Year’s Honours List, 2004.
• Rosemary has more than 12 years experience working on the national press, first at The Sun, then the Daily Mail, and excels providing instant expert comments on medical news stories.

Media work:

Rosemary’s knowledge and ability to convey complex matters without medical jargon have led to a wide variety of television and radio work. She makes regular contributions to the news output of the BBC, both on TV and radio, and has also been the regular medical expert on The Wright Stuff, and the evening news on Channel 5.

She co-presented Fighting Fit with the Eastenders, Kick the Habit on BBC1, Why Me? and Call the Doctor on the Living Channel, and and now she does the same thing as part of Anna Raeburn’s show on LBC.

Specialised areas:

• Stop Smoking

Current positions:

• GP and Stop Smoking specialist
• Faculty member of the Global Healthcare Alliance for the treatment of tobacco dependence
• Senior GP Partner, Wandsworth Medical Centre

Profile:

Alex is senior partner of a General Practice in Wandsworth, South London, and has been running specialist stop smoking clinics as a GP for ten years. He is the first GP with Special Interests (GPSI) in smoking cessation in the country.

Working on a chest ward as a junior doctor led him to become a passionate campaigner on the dangers of smoking. He has carried out important research into the treatment of nicotine addiction and believes that helping smokers to stop is a most important part of General Practice. He is a regular broadcaster and speaker on stopping smoking throughout the UK and abroad.

Media work:

Alex has extensive experience in all the media over the past twenty years. He was resident doctor on Sky News from 1997-2003 and assistant medical editor of GP Newspaper from 1991-1996. He has done many interviews for BBC and ITV news and has also appeared on Kilroy and GMTV more times than he can remember.

He featured on two Channel 4 documentaries, “Natural Born Healers” examining complementary medicine, and “Cutting Edge -Rescue” on medical assistance to travellers abroad.

Nowadays he concentrates his media output entirely on his passion – the dangers of smoking and helping people to stop.

Specialised areas:

• General Practice

Current positions:

• Locum GP

Profile:

Retired from full time GP with a background of psychology, banking and computers before medicine.

Now doing locum work. I can comment on all areas of medicine and try to inject humour wherever possible. Married, grown up children. Interests other than explaining medicine, include theatre, travel, walking.

Media work:

Author of several books about medicine for the lay public including Penguin Book of Symptoms; Hamlyn Family Health Encyclopaedia; How to Stay Healthy (Bloomsbury). Many articles, often with a humourous bent. I have advised journalists and have written/edited material for the NHS Choices website. Some radio work (BBC2, 3 Counties Radio). Ex-chairman of the Medical Writers’ Group of the Society of Authors.

• Radiology – sports injury imaging
• General lifestyle and well being advice
• Food

Current positions:

• Dr Sarah for Chrysalis/LBC doing This Show Could Change Your Life, and The All Girl Saturday Afternoon Show
• Writing for national newspapers
• Raising awareness of breast cancer issues

Profile:

I qualified in 1985 and trained as a radiologist at Barts. I was a consultant at St Mary’s until 2001, when I left the NHS.

I write for national newspapers on general NHS issues, as well as cancer in general, and specifically breast cancer.

I appear regularly on the radio, giving lifestyle and well being advice, and have made several TV appearances, most recently on The F Word. I live in Battersea with my partner, two children and two dogs.

Media work:

Radio as detailed above and also:

• Woman’s Hour
• You and Yours
• TV appearances have included:
• Tonight with Sir Trevor MacDonald
• Channel 4 News
• BBC News
• Esther
• Richard and Judy (twice)
• The F word

a GP and a regular broadcaster and medical writer. He writes freelance and had his own “Dr Raj” column in The Daily Express for twelve months. Raj was the resident doctor in the controversial eight part “Fat Club” series shown on prime-time ITV drawing over 6 million viewers per episode. More recently, he featured on Channel 5’s “Girl’s Guide to 21st Century Sex”. His TV debut was as “The Granada Tonight Doctor” on north-west Television in 1999. He has since worked on the Wellbeing digital TV channel as a co-presenter and expert GP, and on Yorkshire TV’s Interactive Health Show. Raj has a relaxed friendly manner, and is equally at home in the studio or on location, live or pre-recorded.

In addition to his regular work, Raj has made many guest appearances on:

Channel 4 Richard & Judy, Granada’s Lunchtime Live, Tyne Tees TV Live Lunch, Radio 5 Edwina Currie’s “Currie Club”, GMR’s Andy Peebles Late Show, Radio 4’s “You and Yours”.

Raj is a Manchester Graduate (1985) and has been a GP since 1993. He has a wide range of clinical expertise and

has a special interest in skin problems. Raj was winner of DOCTOR magazine’s ‘GP Dermatology Doctor of the Year Award’ 1998 – 1999. His practice – The Brooke Surgery was given an NHS Beacon award for clinical services in 1999.

A good understanding and working knowledge of the NHS helped him in his role as a former GP adviser to the Department of Health. He is chair of the Professional Executive Committee for Tameside & Glossop Primary Care Trust.

Dr Raj Patel is a popular medical student tutor at Manchester University, and trains both doctors and nurses. He would probably prefer to forget his experience with amateur dramatics in Medical Revues! He has extensive public speaking experience and has written for medical and lay media. Raj also runs training workshops for “Presentation Skills” and “Dealing with the Media”.

Specialised areas:

• Travel medicine
• Expedition medicine
• Medicolegal (personal injury in road traffic accidents, etc)
• Benefits such as
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  Disability Living Allowance,

• Incapacity Benefit and Industrial Injury Benefit

Current positions:

• Writer & lecturer on travel health
• Medicolegal examiner (personal injury)
• Leader of tours and trekking holidays
• Member of Disability and Incapacity Benefit Appeal Tribunals

Profile:

I am a former GP in the Lake District. I currently work as a freelance writer and lecturer on travel health, examine accident victims in connection with their claims for damages and sit on Appeal Tribunals hearing appeals by unsuccessful benefit claimants. I am interested in chronic pain syndromes e.g. back pain and post-accident neck pain. I am interested in all health problems associated with travel, including expeditions and high altitude problems, having been an expedition doctor and climber and a mountain rescue team doctor. I also lead tours and treks to a variety of countries and have travelled in Africa, Asia and South America.

Media work:

• Television appearance in a programme on asthma.
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• Radio interviews on travel health topics

Rob is the Classic FM radio doctor and has live and recorded television experience as a guest expert and presenter.

He has presented radio and webcast shows, and DVD and CD-Rom programmes.

He writes for Men’s Fitness, Healthy, Prima Baby and Teletext, and often contributes to other publications including the Mirror and Express newspapers, Now, Top Sante, Woman, Zest, and New Woman.

Rob has published two books – “Control your blood pressure: Keeping a lid on hypertension” and “Beat your allergies: Find relief, feel free”.

An editor and prolific contributor to the BBC online health sites, he is also the medical script adviser to the successful BBC television drama series “Doctors”.

He gives talks for consumer, professional and corporate audiences and during his many years as a communications consultant has become a respected media-trainer.

Specialised areas:

• Communication & Consumerism
• General Practice and Sexual Health
• Comedy
• Politics and Health Service Reform

Current positions:

• GP Assistant, Keynsham
• Honorary Lecturer in Medical Communication

Profile:

Phil qualified as a GP in 1991.

Between 1993 and 1996, he was a Lecturer in General Practice at the University of Birmingham and received the Owen Wade Award for Teacher of the Year, as voted by the students.

Between 1996 and 1999, he was a Lecturer in Medical Communication at the University of Bristol and his work was highly commended by the General Medical Council and Quality Assessment Authority. As a doctor, Phil worked as a GP for 10 years before switching to Sexual Health Medicine for two years between 2000 and 2002. He has recently returned to General Practice, living and practicing near Bristol.

Media work:

Phil has vast experience as a writer, presenter, broadcaster and speaker. As a journalist, he broke the story of the Bristol heart scandal, gave evidence to the Public Inquiry and was made a Vice President of the Patients’ Association. He presented six series of “Trust Me, I’m a Doctor” on BBC2 and wrote a best selling book of he same name. He recently toured the UK with a one man show, “89 Minutes to save the NHS”, described by Time Out as Time Out as “Tremendous; sceptical, irreverent and very funny”. He is Private Eye’s medical correspondent and has been a panellist on “Have I Got News for You” five times. In 2005, he presented “Body Wars” (Discovery Channel), “NHS Day” (BBC1), “A History of Anaesthetics” and “Doctor, Doctor” (both Channel 5)

Specialised areas:

• Old Age Medicine
• Medical Ethics & Medical Law
• Pain management
• Genetics

Current positions:

• Trust Practitioner, Care of the Elderly, Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford
• Freelance Medical Journalist
• Advisory Committee member, Progress Educational Trust

Profile:

After qualifying as a doctor in 1982 Trisha worked for a number of years in a variety of hospital specialities (including general medicine, respiratory medicine and anaesthetics) before rekindling an early interest in writing and moving into medical journalism. She worked as a freelance journalist for over 15 years and now, as her children are growing up, has returned to clinical medicine in the field of Care of the Elderly. She currently divides her working week equally between clinical duties and journalism.

She is married to Duncan, a Dental Surgeon, and has 2 children. Interests include playing the guitar, tennis, textile art and gardening.

Media work:

• Reporter/presenter for the BBC Radio Science Unit for 15 years on a variety of health programmes for BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service (for example, current/recent programmes include reporter for “Casenotes” and presenter of “The Expert Patient” on Radio 4.)
• Contributions to programmes on many other radio networks, especially Radio 5 Live, on a regular basis.
• Health correspondent for BBCi (Online) Health, with editorial, campaign and weekly feature writing duties as well as writing responses to viewers’ health questions.
• A series of books on the human body for children age 7-11, published Spring 2005 (Bodyscope, Kingfisher Publications) and now working on another series.
• Occasional features and other articles for a variety of national magazines and newspapers.
• Research/writing/scripting/medical consultancy for published materials (newsletters, conference reports, CD-Rom, information leaflets) and video/audiovisual materials, for professional and general audiences. Recent examples include
• Writing activity packs for the “Jeans for Genes” schools genetics campaign, 2004.
• Updating the Progress Trust Guide to genetics, 2004
• Writing an overnight newspaper for the World Institute of Pain’s Congresses, Sept 2004 in Barcelona,
  BIC Codes bank

  Sept 2003 in Prague.

• Writing educational CD programmes for primary healthcare professionals on the management of pain, for a pharmaceutical company sponsor
• Media training and consultancy, including campaign and crisis management. e.g. for Norwich Union Healthcare, Progress Educational Trust, Arla Foods/Lactofree.
• Medical consultancy/spokesperson for PR campaigns, e.g. for the National Blood Service’s recent radio campaigns, BBC Radio2 ‘s Infertility campaign.
• Trisha has also worked on a variety of TV programmes as the medical “expert”, including “After 5” with Caron Keating on London ITV, Open House with Gloria Hunniford on Channel 5, and The Really Useful Show BBC 1.
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