Professor Andrew Whitelaw
Andrew Whitelaw went to school in Fife and Edinburgh, and then studied natural sciences at Cambridge
and medicine at St Mary’s (now Imperial) in London. He worked in training posts in paediatrics in London, including a research fellowship in metabolism and nutrition at the Institute of Child Health. In 1978 he moved to Toronto as a neonatal fellow and realised that techniques to investigate the newborn brain were emerging. Returning to London, he worked for the MRC for 2 years, then became consultant senior lecturer at Hammersmith Hospital (Royal Postgraduate Medical School). He was a member of a group pioneering neurological assessment, cranial ultrasound, neonatal MRI, neonatal EEG and randomised trials in neonatal intensive care. In 1990, he moved to Oslo where he was Associate Professor and became Professor of Paediatrics in 1995. In 1998, he became Professor Neonatal Medicine in Bristol and Consultant Neonatologist at Southmead and St Michael’s Hospitals.
He was awarded the Raymond Horton Smith Prize for the best MD thesis at Cambridge in 1978. In 1985-6 after working in Colombia for UNICEF, he did the first scientific studies and trials on skin-to-skin contact for premature infants (Kangaroo baby care) a technique which is now used worldwide. In 2005-7 he was a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics Working Party on Critical Care Decisions in the Fetus and Newborn. Andrew was elected President of the Neonatal Society 2006-8. He has held funding from the MRC, Wellcome Trust and a number of charities including Action Medical Research and the Health Foundation.
Andrew’s major research interest and clinical expertise has been in the mechanisms, diagnosis and treatment of neonatal brain injury, particularly intraventricular haemorrhage and hydrocephalus in prematures and hypoxic-ischaemic injury in term babies. Together with Professor Marianne Thoresen (CSSB), Andrew has established Bristol as an internationally recognised centre for experimental treatments for babies with brain injury and the use of models of neonatal brain injury. Andrew has always felt that clinical trials and scientific investigation are a natural part, indeed a quality indicator, of clinical care.
Outside of medicine, Andrew appreciates his family, making music, and their log cabin in Norway,