Long term outcomes and quality of life

Meet our team

Clinicians

Mahmoud Loubani is a Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon, Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust since April 2009. He is also Honorary Professor Hull York Medical School, Yorkshire Cardiothoracic Surgery Training Programme Director, the NIHR Yorkshire and the Humber CRN Lead for Cardiothoracic Surgery and Director of Research and Development for his Trust. He is currently the Adult Cardiac Lead in the SCTS Academic and Research Subcommittee. Mahmoud is a graduate of Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland Medical School and completed an MD during a period of research in Leicester before joining the West Midlands Cardiothoracic Training Programme. He has an interest in both basic science and clinical research and has supervised a number of postgraduate degrees.

Iain Squire qualified in Medicine from Glasgow University, UK in 1987. His early training took place in Glasgow, where he held position as Lecturer, and completed MD studies in to the haemodynamic and neurohumoral response to initiation of ACE inhibition in patients with heart failure. He was appointed as Lecturer in Medicine at the University of Leicester in 1995, and as Senior Lecturer in 1998. A personal Professorial Chair was awarded in 2009.

Professor Squire is Consultant Physician at the University Hospitals of Leicester (UHL) NHS Trust where his clinical responsibilities include a 19-bed coronary care unit at Glenfield General Hospital, a busy tertiary cardiology centre. With colleagues Professor Squire runs an out-patient heart failure service which includes an urgent heart failure service, a nurse-led clinic and an in-patient service which includes a 27-bed heart failure unit and seven specialist nurses led by an advanced nurse practitioner.

Professor Squire was a Councillor to the British Society for Heart Failure from 2001 to 2003, Treasurer from 2009 to 2011, Deputy Chair from 2011 to 2013 and Chair of the Society from 2015 to 2017. He now Chairs the BSH Research Committee. Professor Squire was a member of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence Technology Appraisal Committee A for ten years until 2018, the last 8 of which he was Vice Chair of the Committee. He now Chairs the National Institutes for Cardiac Outcomes Research (NICOR) Data Access for Research Committee.

His research interests include: natriuretic peptides and other cardiac biomarkers; the epidemiology of heart failure; prognostic markers in heart failure and acute coronary syndromes; and the influence of glycaemia and diabetes on prognosis in coronary artery disease. Iain has authored over 200 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals, and several book chapters.

Health services researchers

Laura Gray is a medical statistician with an interest in designing trials, especially those using cluster randomisation or those testing complex interventions. The majority of her work is in long term conditions, particularly the prevention and management of type 2 diabetes. She hopes her methodological expertise will be of benefit to the initiative.

Patient and public representatives

Sarah Murray is passionate about patient care and putting the patients' needs at the centre of all innovation and research.  This is what motivated her to join this novel and ground-breaking initiative and she is proud to be the Chair of the British Heart Foundation/James Lind Alliance Public and Patient Initiative for the Priority Setting Partnership.  She is also Chair of the NICOR Patient Representative Group, and the Lay representative on the Executive of the Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery.  She is a qualified solicitor with a broad range of NED experience both at national and regional level.

Paul Haywood wishes to assist the group in identifying clinical trials that are needed to advance cardiac surgery in the future and to help where needed in delivering the vision and outcome of the clinical trials.

Phil Collis lives with CVD and is experienced working with patient groups and organisations including British Heart Foundation, European Heart Network, and the National Institute for Health Research. Phil works to ensure people affected by CVD have access to evidence-based information and the opportunity to influence CVD research. Phil also acts as a patient advisor with the Centre for Patient Reported Outcomes Research Centre based at Birmingham University.

Gil Wheeler since his diagnosis of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy heart condition back in 1990, has been involved with patient engagement and participation roles both at local and national levels learning to both listen and speak up for the patient. Throughout his time with this involvement he has learnt and helped to educate not only other patients but clinical staff as well. He sits on several health service steering groups looking at best practices, data, research, clinical studies and funding for new ideas to supporting the Heart patient now and in the future. He has set up 3 Facebook groups Big heart Club, Patients Voice and Empowering Patients within the NHS.

Cardiothoracic interdisciplinary research network representatives

Shagorika Talukder is a run-through cardiothoracic surgical trainee, based in Cambridge at the Royal Papworth Hospital, currently completing her thoracic training year at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital. Shagorika has been interested in the holistic recovery of cardiac surgery patients beyond our hospital settings, and hopes to contribute to this field by looking at quality of life outcomes of our patients with a multi-disciplinary research team.  She feels this will better equip us as cardiothoracic centres and teams, and as individual surgeons, to make better decisions in every step of the patient's care pathway.

Abdul Badran is a Cardiothoracic Surgery Registrar in the South of England as well as the national trainee representative for the Society of Cardiothoracic Surgeons. He has a keen interest in cohort studies as well as genetic and epigenetic markers of disease. He is currently part of the Cardiothoracic Interdisciplinary Research Network (CIRN) and exploring the impact of patient frailty in cardiothoracic disease.