We are proud to announce the following keynote speakers:
Professor Zarko Alfirevic
United Kingdom
Zarko Alfirevic is Professor of Fetal and Maternal Medicine at the University of Liverpool and Consultant Obstetrician at the Liverpool Women’s Hospital, one of the largest stand-alone Maternity Units in Europe with more than 8,000 deliveries per annum. He was the Liverpool Women’s Clinical Director for Maternity Services between 2002 and 2007. His long-standing academic interest is in the ‘Evidence Based Medicine’ and research related to pre-term labour, labour induction, ultrasound and high risk obstetrics. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters with over 50 invitations to lecture at major national and international conferences. He is the joint Co-ordinating Editor for Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group, one of the Editors for ‘Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology’ and serves as a deputy Chair of the Clinical Standard Committee for ISUOG (International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology).
Mr Tim Draycott
United Kingdom
Tim Draycott is a Consultant Obstetrician in the United Kingdom with a research interest in Patient Safety, particularly multi-professional training, simulation, team working and quality improvement in obstetrics. His work aims to improve systems for coalface clinicians without getting too stuck in the seemingly endemic sociology of team working and crew resource management; make the right way the easiest way and everyone will do it.
He has led the development of the PROMPT course, which has been associated with improved knowledge, communication, team working and direct improvements in perinatal outcome. It has been successfully rolled out to >50% of units in the United Kingdom and introduced into Hong Kong, New Zealand and the United States of America. He developed the PROMPT model for birth simulation and has just started to explore the place of virtual reality technologies for obstetric training.
He leads the Research into Safety and Quality (RiSQ) Group who have developed a set of national Quality Indicators for the United Kingdom, an automated maternity dashboard and a simple tool to measure maternal satisfaction after delivery. The group has also introduced a series of simple and cheap decision support tools to improve care in labour including a CTG sticker, which is now in common use across the United Kingdom.
Dr Metin Gülmezoglu
Switzerland
A. Metin Gülmezoglu works at the UNDP/ UNFPA/WHO/World Bank Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction (HRP) at the Department of Reproductive Health and Research (WHO) in Geneva. He is an obstetrician and gynaecologist with experience in research synthesis, clinical trials and knowledge dissemination and transfer. Since 1997, he is the coordinating editor of the Reproductive Health Library, a specialist database in reproductive health disseminated worldwide. His research activities focus on preventing postpartum haemorrhage and implementing evidence-based obstetric practices.
Dr Gülmezoglu has been a Cochrane reviewer since 1995 and conducted reviews with Pregnancy and Childbirth, Infectious Diseases, Fertility Regulation and Neonatal groups. He is an editorial team member of Pregnancy and Childbirth and Fertility Regulation groups.
Professor Justus Hofmeyr
South Africa
Justus Hofmeyr graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand Medical School in 1973. He worked at Holy Cross Mission Hospital, Transkei, before specialising in obstetrics and gynaecology. He studied fetal physiology in Oxford in 1983. He was Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Coronation Hospital and the University of the Witwatersrand from 1988 to 2000. He has published about 250 articles in peer-review journals, 45 Cochrane systematic reviews, 25 textbook chapters and eight audiovisual teaching programs. He is co-editor of the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Database and the WHO Reproductive Health Library. He currently works in the department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, East London Hospital Complex, Eastern Cape, South Africa, and the Effective Care Research Unit. His research is focused on improving pregnancy outcomes for women on low-resource settings. He is married with two sons.
Professor Jim Neilson
United Kingdom
Professor Jim Neilson qualified MB ChB in Edinburgh in 1975 and trained in the United Kingdom and Zimbabwe. He has been Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Liverpool since 1993, and has been Head of the School of Reproductive and Developmental Medicine and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. His research interests are in applied, patient-based research in pregnancy. He has been Co-ordinating Editor of the Cochrane Pregnancy and Child birth Group since 1995. This is the most productive review group in the international Cochrane Collaboration and has published more than 330 systematic reviews; many have been cited in national clinical guidelines. He has been involved, as co-investigator, in several clinical trials in pregnancy, including the Magpie Trial of magnesium sulphate in pre-eclampsia, which changed clinical practice in many countries worldwide, and more recently the APPLe Trial in Malawi.
Professor Neilson is the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Dean for Training, overseeing clinical academic training pathways in all medical specialties, and dentistry, in England. He was also awarded one of the prestigious, inaugural, NIHR Senior Investigator Awards in 2008. He was a member of the Editorial Board of the ‘Green Journal’ 2006-09.
Dr Horace Roman
France
Horace Roman is Associated Professor in the Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, Rouen University Hospital, France. He focuses on minimally invasive gynaecologic surgery, and particularly on the surgical management of deep endometriosis. He received his PhD in epidemiology from Pierre and Marie Curie University of Paris, and he accomplished a fellowship in the Department of Pediatric Epidemiology of Charleston, SC, USA. Horace Roman is affiliated with several professional organizations including the American Association of Gynecological Laparoscopy and the European Society of Gynecologic Endoscopy. Dr. Roman has authored more than 160 scientific abstracts and original articles in peer-reviewed journals such as Fertility and Sterility, American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Human Reproduction and Obstetrics & Gynecology, and national and international conferences.