• Consultant Surgeon, Peripheral Nerve Injury Unit, Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Stanmore, UK (2013-)
• Honorary Associate Professor , Institute of Orthopaedics and Musculoskeletal Science, University College London, UK (2019-)
• Clinical lead for Peripheral Nerve Injury Unit, Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital (2018-)
• Director of research Peripheral Nerve Injury Research Unit (PNIRU) (2017-)
• Clinical lead for peripheral nerves, Centre for Nerve Engineering (CNE) UCL (2017-)
• Honorary Senior Lecturer, Institute of Orthopaedics and Musculoskeletal Science, University College London, UK (2013-2019)
• Honorary Consultant Surgeon, Great Ormond Street Hospital, London (2012-)
• Honorary Consultant Surgeon, Evelina Children’s Hospital, London (2015-)

Tom’s professional interests include: Nerve injury in adults and children, Obstetric Brachial palsy, conditions of the growing shoulder and elbow, neuromuscular conditions of the paediatric and adolescent upper limb and surgical management of peripheral nerve pain states.

Tom is a keen swimmer, apiarist and rugby fan. He enjoys reading modern fiction, listening to electronica and drinking whisky. He has a young family and too little free time.

Tom has one of the largest obstetric palsy practices in the United Kingdom providing huge experience in this very focused field.

As part of providing a national referral service for Adult and paediatric brachial plexus and peripheral nerve injury Tom has a large experience of traumatic supra- and infra-clavicular plexal injury repair and reconstruction.

Microsurgical grafting, nerve transfer surgery and secondary reconstruction cases are managed through a rapid access clinic with structured follow up and rehabilitation programmes to support these patients.

Treatment of cocontraction is another area of clinical expertise in both adults and children where Tom has a focused interest.

UCL Centre for Nerve Injury. (https://www.nerve-engineering.ucl.ac.uk/people/)

James Philllips (jamesphillips.org) is a tissue engineer who works in the area of neuronal growth and Schwann cell and other neural elements and glia, as well as in the field of regenerative tissue design and material interfaces.

UCL division of Surgery (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/surgery) supports Tom’s research and education roles.

UCL Centre for Medical Image computing- CMIC (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/medical-image-computing/)

RNOH charity has been very generous in supporting Toms research vision from the very beginning. (http://www.rnohcharity.org)

Outcomes
As we push to improve the outcomes for those with nerve injury it is important to understand what this means for patients. Which parts of the patients’ problems are most important to them?, how much improvement is noticeable? etc etc.

Tom is working towards providing the answers to these questions. if you feel you want to contribute please read the following document for more information (patient outcome leaflet) and contact nerveinjuryresearch@gmail.com

Co-contraction
Co-contraction is a problem where muscles have regained function after nerve injury but the nerves have wired two muscles with opposing actions together. This means that even though there has been nerve recovery the function hasn’t improved. For example if muscles bending and straightening the elbow are wired together it is impossible to properly bend the elbow to bring the hand to the mouth. Tom has had very good results in using botulinum toxin to ‘reset’ these co-contractions and is researching how this works, who it works best for and how we might improve the therapy. Tom has state of the art technology to assess and record both the force generated by a muscle group (with a static dynamometer) but also the effect of co-contraction with (bi-surface EMGs).

OBPP
Obstetric Brachial Plexus Palsy (OBPP or Erb’s palsy) is a very complicated nerve injury suffered at the time of birth. There are many factors of this condition that are far from fully understood. Tom is working on projects in a number of areas to improve the ability to understand treat and rehabilitate children, adolescents and young adults with this injury.

Nerve Injury Biology
There is a great deal of information about how the cells involved in nerve injury and repair work in animals, but how this translates to humans is not clear. As part of his MD(res) research Tom has developed a surgical model to investigate how human Schwann cells and macrophages respond to injury and regeneration. Tom is recruiting patients now to this project contact (nerveinjuryresearch@gmail.com) for further information.

Tom teaches on a number of national training courses:

• https://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/study-abroad-ucl/summer-school/modules/nerve-injury-treatment
• http://www.millerfrcsorthopaedicrevisioncourse.co.uk/
• http://www.oruk.org/news-and-events/events/find-a-past-event/c79ppb8a21.html
• http://www.avonmusculoskeletaleducation.co.uk/basic-sciences-in-orthopaedics-course.html

Tom also teaches UCL modules for BSc, MSc studies

• https://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/study-abroad-ucl/summer-school/modules/nerve-injury-treatment
• https://www.ucl.ac.uk/surgery/courses/postgraduate/pg-taught/msc-musculoskeletal-science
• https://www.ucl.ac.uk/surgery/graduate-taught-study/advanced-minimally-invasive-surgery-ms
• https://www.ucl.ac.uk/surgery/graduate-taught-study/rehabilitation-engineering-and-assistive-technologies-msc

and has published book chapters:

• http://www.us.elsevierhealth.com/greens-operative-hand-surgery-2-volume-set-9781455774272.html
• https://www.crcpress.com/Orthopaedic-Trauma-The-Stanmore-and-Royal-London-Guide/DawsonBowling-Achan-Briggs-Ramachandran/9781444148824

He is both a surgical tutor and educational supervisor to Orthopaedic Training Registrars.

Tom leads on the UCL summer school ‘ The medicine, science and Engineering of Nerve Injury’  which is a three week course for international undergraduates.

He served as the Head of Undergraduate Education for the Division of Surgery at UCL, for 5 years. He has supervised  PhD, BSc and MSc students for UCL and serves on the examination board for these courses.

Tom has run surgical simulation sessions and is on the Medical Education Committee at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital.

Tom trains 6 training Registrars per year from the Stanmore, Percivil Pott or Royal London training schemes and provides training to both rotational and non rotational basic surgical Trainees.