Consultant Paediatric Gastroenterologist MBChB DCH FRCPCH FRCP MD Paediatric Gastroenterologist and Professor at the Centre for Paediatric Gastroenterology in Sheffield. He graduated from Aberdeen Medical School in 1985 and started paediatric gastroenterology training in 1987/8. In the early 1990s he spent five years working in Australia, as a Clinical Research Fellow in gastroenterology and cystic fibrosis at the Royal Children's Hospital Foundation in Brisbane with Prof Ross Shepherd. While there he was awarded his Medical Doctorate on cystic fibrosis genetics and energy expenditure. Professor Thomson's interests include endoscopy training and interventional endoscopy. His first position when he moved back to the UK was as a Child Health Lecturer in the Liver Transplant Unit at Birmingham Children's Hospital with Prof Deirdre Kelly. He was subsequently, in 1995, appointed as a Consultant at the Royal Free Hospital at the Unit of one of the founders of modern day paediatric gastroenterology, Prof John Walker-Smith. He also leads the ESPGHAN Endoscopy Working Group. He has organized and runs the foremost Hands-On Paediatric Endoscopy Training Courses in the world – both diagnostic and therapeutic. He has pioneered the use of minimally invasive endoscopic treatments for many pathologies in childhood over the past 35 years. He has published more than 250 peer-reviewed articles and also over 100 invited reviews and heads a large research group. He has led and co-authored more than 50 Guidelines and position papers for ESPGHAN and NASPGHAN. He is author of over 60 Paediatric GI Chapters in International Textbooks and is co-author of 7 paediatric textbooks including the standard text for MRCPCH, ‘Concise Paediatrics’. He has co-edited the textbook which is now the standard text for the paediatric oesophagus and stomach and has written the major textbook on paediatric endoscopy. ‘Practical Pediatric Gastrointestinal Endoscopy’. This has 50 Chapters with contributions from the best in this field and deals with all aspects of this fascinating discipline. Hundreds of endoscopy trainees have come through the Sheffield International Academy of Paediatric Endoscopy Training. He has engineered the ESPGHAN Endoscopy Fellowship programme now in its 5th year and started the Endoscopy Learning Zone at the Annual ESPGHAN Meeting now in its 7th year. He is passionate about excellence in paediatric endoscopy and minimally invasive approaches to luminal and extra-luminal problems – although working closely with paediatric surgeons his vision is to make them redundant by application of techniques such as endoscopic anti-reflux procedures and all other natural orifice endoscopic therapeutic techniques. Mike.thomson1@nhs.uk paprofthomson@hcahealthcare.co.uk www.paediatricgastroenterologist.co.uk