Year James Spence Medal awarded: 2011
Andrew Wilkinson is Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Oxford and Director of Neonatal Medicine at the John Radcliffe Hospital. He is a leading international authority on neonatal medicine.
After spending five years training in adult medicine, Professor Wilkinson took up a post in paediatric neurology and infectious diseases at Great Ormond Street Hospital in 1973. Thereafter, apart from a two-year Fulbright Fellowship at the Cardiovascular Research Institute, the University of California, San Francisco, his career has centred on Oxford where he has held posts as Nuffield Medical Research Fellow, Clinical Lecturer in Paediatrics, Consultant Paediatrician, and Clinical Reader in Paediatrics, before becoming Professor of Paediatrics in 1997.
He was elected a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford in 1992, where his interests are registered as ‘clinical neurodevelopmental research, particularly in newborn babies’. He is also Knight, First Class of the Order of the White Rose of Finland for contributions to student teaching in that country.
Under his direction, work in the Neonatal Unit, at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford has shown the importance of prospective surveillance of perinatal infections and described the management of potential viral and bacterial epidemics and the use and misuse of antibiotics which laid foundations for modern therapeutic regimens. Notable scientific contributions were one of the first randomised controlled trials of artificial ventilation and of surfactant therapy in the UK, thus laying the foundation for many subsequent neonatal clinical trials.
Throughout Professor Wilkinson’s career in teaching and training, including the supervision of DPhil students and clinical trainees, he has disseminated clarity and expertise in research and clinical practice to many who have gone on to senior posts throughout the UK. Many of his research fellows now lead in centres across the globe.
As well as over 200 peer reviewed publications and numerous chapters in leading obstetric and paediatric texts, Professor Wilkinson has chaired and authored 18 national working party reports leading to advancement in, for example, resuscitation, safe practical procedures and assessment of brain death in the newborn. Between 1993-1998 he led the organisation of the College’s Annual meetings at York and Warwick. He was chair of the Regional Academic Advisers 2006-2011.
He was co-author of the 1992 UK Guideline for the screening and treatment of Retinopathy of Prematurity. He then chaired, for the RCPCH, the joint BAPM/RCOphth revision in 2008 which has been published after international peer review.
In addition to his own research, Professor Wilkinson has chaired the Steering and Data and Safety monitoring committees for a number of Multicentre RCTs and international advisory boards. From 2000 to 2003 he was chairman of the National Advisory Board of the Confidential Enquiry into Stillbirths and Deaths in Infancy (CESDI, now CEMACH).
As President of the British Association of Perinatal Medicine, 1999-2002, he was responsible for the publication of the ‘Standards for Hospitals Providing Neonatal Intensive and High Dependency Care’, on which the 2003 Department of Health review of Neonatal Care in England and 2010 Toolkit were based. He was President of the Neonatal Society 2003-2006.
As independent external chair of the Welsh Assembly Government’s Children and Young Peoples Specialist Services ‘All Wales Standards for Neonatal Services’, launched by Minister of Health, Edwina Hart in December 2008, which has led to the reorganisation of neonatal services in Wales.
He is a Trustee of the hospice Helen & Douglas House and was elected an Honorary Fellow of the College in 2010.
In summary, Professor Wilkinson has devoted his career to successfully raising the standards for the care of newborn babies internationally.