Announcing the 2023 Honorary Fellows

We are pleased to announce the 2023 elected Honorary Fellows. Honorary Fellowship is awarded to a small number of people who are considered by our members to have made a major contribution to paediatrics and child health through research, education, clinical service and leadership.
Illustrations of trophies and medals on a purple background

Professor Lisine Tuyisenge 

Professor Tuyisenge is the founding President and Head of the Rwanda Paediatric Association, a long-standing partner organisation with RCPCH in Rwanda’s perinatal quality improvement drive. She has led the RPA into an authoritative and influential national paediatric professional organisation. 

Lisine has an impressive track record as a paediatrician in Rwanda where she has a formidable reputation for advancing the priority of maternal, newborn and child health, spearheading multiple programmes to develop paediatric education and clinical knowledge, and engaging tirelessly with government and international partners to keep child health and survival at the top of the national health and development agenda. It is no coincidence that since 2000 Rwanda has seen the fastest reduction in avoidable child deaths in modern history. 

Professor Tuyisenge is a great friend and colleague of RCPCH. She attended our national conference in Liverpool last year and hosted members of the Global Team for a very successful visit to Kigali last October.    

Professor Viv Bennett 

Professor Bennett has a nursing and health visiting career spanning four decades. She completed a masters in health and social policy and is a Visiting Professor at King’s College London and the recipient of an honorary doctorate from the University of Coventry. 

She held numerous national leadership roles culminating with being England’s Director of Nursing at Public Health England from September 2012. In these roles she has provided independent, high quality advice to ministers and officials on issues surrounding policy and nursing in the public health sphere.

Professor Bennett played a crucial role during the COVID-19 pandemic making the case for health promotion and actively championing the importance of focussing on the indirect harms to children of COVID-19, especially in relation to safeguarding, domestic violence, child, and maternal mental health as well as the impact of lost education. 

Viv retired last August from her role as Chief Public Health Nurse for OHID (the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities) and leaves an impressive legacy of championing child health. 

Dr Arvind Shah 

Dr Arvind Shah has had a long career as a paediatrician and has made a significant contribution to the advancement of child health through his leadership of a high quality paediatric services in North London. He has been a champion of integrated services, developing pathways for common childhood conditions used across primary and secondary care and developing community services.

He has a long track record of working with the RCPCH, with roles as clinical tutor, working with the Global team on reducing incidence of cerebral palsy and developing palliative care in India and work with UNICEF to reduce neonatal and infant mortality in Nepal.

He has been a significant contributor to the MRCPCH and DCH examination for well over 20 years as a host, senior and international examiner. He has been involved in developing the exam syllabus, and content, exam preparation courses, the RCPCH masterclass books for the theory exams, and in training examiners. In his role as RCPCH Strategic Regional Adviser for South Asia he was instrumental in setting up new examination centres in India, Nepal, and Myanmar. During the pandemic, he was a key player in devising and implanting the virtual MRCPCH.

Dr Carol Roberts

Dr Roberts started her medical career training as a GP, before becoming a staff grade community paediatrician and then associate specialist working in a deprived inner city area of Nottingham. As well as providing clinical services in general and developmental paediatrics and safeguarding, she contributed to the departmental service development, teaching, and training. She became a skilled appraiser, becoming Trust lead appraiser and redesigning the medical appraisal system. In 2018 she was appointed Deputy Medical Director for Professional Standards at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.

Carol has been a real trailblazer, and an example of the contribution that can be made by SAS doctors, for whom she is a great champion. After serving as Chair of the RCPCH SAS committee, she became the first SAS doctor to hold an RCPCH officer role (For CPD and revalidation), subsequently becoming one of the inaugural Member Trustees, and an invited reviewer. 

Her expertise in professional standards and development have been recognised beyond her Trust and the College, with work on committees for the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, and as an NHS national appraiser for medical directors.

Dr San San Oo  

Dr San San Oo is a paediatrician who has worked for many years in the UK and through this time, she worked closely with RCPCH Global. She aimed to provide support for the provision and development of Child Health services and professionals in her home country of Myanmar. She has played a key role in helping the team build relationships with the Myanmar paediatric society and the Ministry of Health and Sports to help enhance the impact of the RCPCH Programme across Myanmar.

She has provided support from the UK and has also travelled to the region, at some personal risk, to support a number of programmes, including relief work following cyclone Nargis in 2008, cofounding the Better Burmese Health Care Programme providing affordable health care to poverty stricken families, and training and education for health professionals. She was instrumental in helping launch the RCPCH Emergency Paediatric Care programme in Myanmar, acting as an instructor and advising on developing local partnerships.
 
She has continued to support College work in Myanmar since the 2021 coup, making links with local health care professionals to enable the setting up of remote teaching and an emergency telemedicine service, and providing translations and commentary for teaching videos.

Professor Nick Bishop 

Professor Bishop was the UK’s first Professor of Paediatric Bone Disease, established the metabolic bone service and headed up the Academic unit of Child Health in Sheffield. Through these roles he has provided expert advice to paediatricians across the UK and internationally. He has led research investigating causes of bone disease in children, and trials that have advanced therapies for metabolic bone disease. 

He served as RCPCH Vice President for Science and Research from 2019-22, promoting the research agenda and maintaining momentum through the pandemic. He worked closely with the NIHR specialty lead for children, strengthening the NIHR – RCPCH collaboration.

Nick developed the Academic toolkit, a nationally recognised resource for trainees wishing to train pursue academic careers.

Throughout his career Nick has been a great champion for research and academia in child health and through his own research has transformed lives of Children and Young People with metabolic bone disease. His contribution was recognised by the Brittle Bone Society with an award for Outstanding Service for the care and research in Osteogenesis Imperfecta.


Nominations are now open for next year's Honorary Fellows