Prehabilitation

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Meet our team

Clinicians

John Cleland

John is a Cardiologist and Director of the Robertson Centre for Biostatistics, an internationally accredited Clinical Trials Unit offering a complete service, both to academia and industry, for the conduct of trials and registries in many therapeutic areas. His main interest is heart failure, extending from its epidemiology and prevention, to Phase II-IV trials and the development and implementation of guidelines. Particular current interests include the myocardial substrate, mechanisms of progression (eg. congestion and inflammation), telemonitoring and theranostics.

Ben Gibbison

Ben is Associate Professor of Cardiac Anaesthesia and Intensive Care at the Bristol Heart Institute. His research interests surround Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis dysfunction and brain dysfunction after cardiac surgery and in critical illness. He also is Chief Investigator for a number of NIHR funded clinical trials.

Health services researchers 

Maria Pufulete

Maria is an applied health methodologist at the Bristol Health Institute. She designs and conducts randomised controlled trials, non-randomised studies, systematic reviews and mixed methods studies in cardiovascular disease. She is Chief Investigator for multiple NIHR-funded studies.

Patient and public representatives

Mark Lewis  

Mark has lived with Aortic Dissections since 2012 and has been an active member of the patient support group Aortic Dissection Awareness (UK and Ireland) following emergency surgery for a Type A dissection in July 2018.  He has had a number of major and minor operations and is a strong believer in the "voice of the patient" in medical interventions and contributing to National Health Care Standards/Policy.  He is contributing to a number of research projects within Cardiovascular surgery and also Aortic Dissections.   He has a particular interest in patient decision support tools, and the use of digital and data services.  Recently he was appointed as a Patient and Public Voice (PPV) member of the NHS England Specialist Vascular Clinical Reference Group.

Sarah Murray

Sarah 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.