Born and raised in South Africa, Dr Emily Simpson graduated as a doctor from the University of Pretoria. Following her year of Internship, she worked in a gold mine hospital outside of Johannesburg, triaging and managing trauma cases alongside medical and rescue teams in the mine shafts.
Upon relocating to the UK, she undertook postgraduate training in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care at Barts and the Royal London School of Anaesthesia. She worked as a Specialist Registrar at Moorfields Eye Hospital, St Andrew’s Centre for Plastic Surgery and Burns and Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. Towards the end of her training, she undertook a year’s Fellowship as Honorary Lecturer at Queen Mary University’s Dental School, teaching safe conscious sedation and the management of medical emergencies in the dental chair.
Following specialist accreditation, Dr Simpson practiced as a Consultant in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care for 13 years at Southend University Hospital before moving to Broomfield Hospital where she currently works. Her specialist interests include robotic colo-rectal and urology surgery, vascular, orthopaedic surgery including trauma, spinal surgery, upper and lower limb surgery, ENT and regional anaesthesia.
Dr Simpson’s passion is medical education, which started whilst helping set-up a successful international postgraduate anaesthetic training programme in Zambia, which has now been running since 2010. At a national level, Dr Simpson is the Chair of the primary FRCA examinations at the Royal College of Anaesthetists and regionally she is Deputy Head of School for the East of England School of Anaesthesia. Locally she designed, directed and delivered several postgraduate simulation courses at the Anglia Ruskin University which have run since 2009. To underpin these educational roles, she obtained a further qualification in medical education at the University of Dundee.
When not at work she enjoys hiking, camping, 4x4 trips in Africa and an afternoon nap.