Send us a text

Welcome to the second episode of season six, in conversation with Professor Tom Shakespeare. 

Professor Shakespeare's Bio:

Tom Shakespeare is a sociologist and bioethicist. He is Professor of Disability Research at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, having worked at several UK universities and WHO. He is a former member of Nuffield Council on Bioethics and Arts Council England. His books include The Sexual Politics of Disability (1996) and Disability Rights and Wrongs (2006) and most recently the novels The Ha-ha (2024) and The Ends (2025).

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics report that we discussed is called Non-invasive prenatal testing: ethical issues and can be found via this link: https://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/publication/non-invasive-prenatal-testing-ethical-issues/

Podcast information:

We have not included any patient identifiable information, and this podcast is intended for professional education rather than patient information (although welcome anyone interested in the field to listen). Please get in touch with feedback or suggestions for future guests or topics: [email protected], or via X, Bluesky or Instagram via @fetalmedcast.

Music by Crowander ('Acoustic romance') used under creative commons licence. Podcast created, hosted and edited by Dr Jane Currie.

Send us a text

Welcome to the first episode of season six, in conversation with Dr Emma Ferriman.

Dr Ferriman's Bio:

Dr Ferriman graduated from Liverpool Medical School in 1990. From 2001 to 2016, she served as a Consultant in Obstetrics and Fetal Medicine in Leeds, before taking up her current role in Sheffield in 2016. 

She currently holds the role of President of the British Maternal and Fetal Medicine Society (BMFMS), Her clinical expertise spans high-risk pregnancies, multile pregnancies, prenatal diagnosis and screening. 

In addition to her medical practice, Emma is actively involved in medicolegal work, serving as an adviser to the General Medicine Council (GMC) and the Medical Protection Society (MPS). She is also an editor and author, contributing to various medicolegal publications. 

Some of the things we discussed included: 

BMFMS: https://www.bmfms.org.uk/default.aspx

The next BMFMS conference will be on 26-27 March in Leeds, UK, and registration and abstract submission is open now: https://bmfmsconference.co.uk/2026/en/page/home

Dr Anthony Hart, paediatric neurologist, who has published many papers including Hart et al (2021) Antenatal counselling for prospective parents whose fetus has a neurological anomaly: part 1, experiences and recommendations for service design (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dmcn.15022)

Podcast information:

We have not included any patient identifiable information, and this podcast is intended for professional education rather than patient information (although welcome anyone interested in the field to listen). Please get in touch with feedback or suggestions for future guests or topics: [email protected], or via X, Bluesky or Instagram via @fetalmedcast.

Music by Crowander ('Acoustic romance') used under creative commons licence. Podcast created, hosted and edited by Dr Jane Currie.

Send us a text

Welcome to the fifth episode of season five, in conversation with Professor Pranav Pandya. 

Professor Pandya's Bio:

Professor Pranav P Pandya
BSc MBBS MD FRCOG
Consultant in Fetal Medicine

Pranav Pandya is a Professor in Fetal Medicine at University College London. He is currently the Director and Clinical Lead of Fetal Medicine services at University College London Hospitals.

Pranav is dedicated to caring for pregnant women and in particular the well-being of their baby. His expertise is in the ultrasound examination of the mother and unborn baby(s) with particular interest in first trimester anomalies, fetal cardiology, surgical anomalies and fetal therapy.

Pranav is also the Chair of the Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme Advisory Group at the UK National Screening Committee, where he is involved in developing and implementing national policy on fetal anomaly scanning and screening for fetal aneuploidy and implementation of cell free fetal DNA within the NHS.

He has published extensively in the field of fetal medicine and is Editor in Chief of a major textbook - Fetal Medicine Basic Science and Clinical Practice.

Podcast information:

We have not included any patient identifiable information, and this podcast is intended for professional education rather than patient information (although welcome anyone interested in the field to listen). Please get in touch with feedback or suggestions for future guests or topics: [email protected], or via Twitter (X), Bluesky or Instagram via @fetalmedcast.

Music by Crowander ('Acoustic romance') used under creative commons licence. Podcast created, hosted and edited by Dr Jane Currie.

Send us a text

Welcome to the fourth episode of season five, in conversation with Professor Eduard Gratacós. 

Professor Gratacós' Bio 

Prof. Eduard Gratacós is director and professor at BCNatal, a referral clinical and research center in Maternal-Fetal Medicine at the University Hospitals Clinic and Sant Joan de Déu in Barcelona. 

Among other international positions, he has been Board and Scientific Chair at ISUOG, Editor-in-Chief at Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy and Director of the Erasmus Mundus European Doctorate in Fetal Medicine. 

His main research lines have been placental insufficiency, fetal programming and fetal therapy in general, including most recently artificial placenta. He has published +600 peer reviewed papers, directed +60 national and international research projects and +40 doctoral theses. 

He has provided training in maternal-fetal medicine to +400 specialists. 

He is the founder of Fetal Medicine Barcelona, which offers worldwide medical training, with over 25,000 users.

Podcast information:

We have not included any patient identifiable information, and this podcast is intended for professional education rather than patient information (although welcome anyone interested in the field to listen). Please get in touch with feedback or suggestions for future guests or topics: [email protected], or via Twitter (X), Bluesky or Instagram via @fetalmedcast.

Music by Crowander ('Acoustic romance') used under creative commons licence. Podcast created, hosted and edited by Dr Jane Currie.

Send us a text

Welcome to the third episode of season five, in conversation with Professor Cynthia Gyamfi-Bannerman. 

Professor Gyamfi-Bannerman's Bio

Dr. Gyamfi-Bannerman is Chair of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at UC San Diego Health, joining the faculty at UCSD in 2021. She holds the Samuel SC Yen Endowed Chair at UCSD and is a Professor with Tenure. She is board certified in both Obstetrics & Gynecology and Maternal-Fetal Medicine and focuses her career on obstetric complications with a primary focus on preterm birth prevention. Dr. Gyamfi is a proficient, NIH funded researcher whose research has focused on preterm birth prediction and prevention and in interventions to improve outcomes for those delivering preterm, namely antenatal corticosteroids. Results of her randomized clinical trial on antenatal corticosteroids in women at risk for late preterm birth were published in the New England Journal of Medicine and changed obstetric practice in the United States. She also conducts research in the areas of preeclampsia, infectious disease, maternal morbidity and health disparities with over 200 peer-reviewed publications.

She is currently the Steering Committee Chair of a multi-center NIHLBI ENRICH study focused on improving maternal and childhood outcomes for pregnant individuals from poorly resources backgrounds, and Steering Committee Chair for the Preventing pre- eclampsia: Evaluating AspiRin Low-dose regimens following risk Screening (PEARLS study), assessing aspirin dosing in sub-Saharan Africa. Recently, she was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, a national medical honor society. Finally, she serves on the NICHD Council.

Aside from her clinical and research endeavors, Dr. Gyamfi is the Immediate Past President for the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM), the national and international society representing all perinatologists after completing her President in February, 2025. She is actively involved in writing clinical guidelines
in obstetrics for both SMFM and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and continues to mentor trainees and junior faculty from around the world.

https://providers.ucsd.edu/details/1568494250/obstetrics-gynecology

Podcast information:

We have not included any patient identifiable information, and this podcast is intended for professional education rather than patient information (although welcome anyone interested in the field to listen). Please get in touch with feedback or suggestions for future guests or topics: [email protected], or via Twitter (X), Bluesky or Instagram via @fetalmedcast.

Music by Crowander ('Acoustic romance') used under creative commons licence. Podcast created, hosted and edited by Dr Jane Currie. 

Send us a text

Welcome to the second episode of season five, in conversation with Dr Fionnuala Mone. 

Fionnuala is a clinical academic in maternal fetal medicine based at Queen's University Belfast. She is dual qualified in genomics and fetal medicine and is an international expert in prenatal genomics acting as the genetics editor for Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology as well as an invited member of the RCOG Genomic Standing Committee, Academic Board and Scientific Advisory Group. She is also secretary for the Fetal Genomics Group of the BSGM and scientific representative for BMFMS. She has over 60 publications in her field and contributes to international guidance related to prenatal genomics.

Podcast information:

We have not included any patient identifiable information, and this podcast is intended for professional education rather than patient information (although welcome anyone interested in the field to listen). Please get in touch with feedback or suggestions for future guests or topics: [email protected], or via Twitter (X) or Instagram via @fetalmedcast.

Music by Crowander ('Acoustic romance') used under creative commons licence. Podcast created, hosted and edited by Dr Jane Currie.

Send us a text

Welcome to the first episode of season five of Conversations in Fetal Medicine, in conversation with Dr Elspeth Whitby

Dr Whitby is a senior lecturer at the University of Sheffield and an Honorary consultant at Sheffield teaching hospitals NHS trust. Her areas of interest are based around obstetric imaging with MRI including the fetus, the placenta and post mortem imaging. She runs a national service for fetal imaging for all body areas and for assessing for placental invasion.
Despite having an academic post her work has been driven by local need and
requests from the clinicians and is heavily clinically based. She is also part of the team that have established the world’s first clinical service for imaging the post mortem fetus and neonate based on the teams work.
In addition she works as part of a sociology team looking at the impact of MRI as
a technology on patient care in the clinical setting both for in utero and post
mortem imaging. The aim of this collaboration is to understand the landscape in
which she works and how that integrates with society. This has altered her
clinical practice in many ways, hopefully for the better.
Her service is streamlined and designed so appointments are available at short
notice but no appointment slots are unfilled. She tries to develop a ‘lean service’
model within the current working environment.
Outside work she prioritises the family but find time for doing traditional and
new crafts, running around the peak district with friends, aiming for brunch or
coffee and cake at the end of the run, and time in the garden, the greenhouse
acting as her sanctuary.

https://www.fetalmri.co.uk/

https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/smph/people/clinical-medicine/elspeth-whitby

Podcast information:

We have not included any patient identifiable information, and this podcast is intended for professional education rather than patient information (although welcome anyone interested in the field to listen). Please get in touch with feedback or suggestions for future guests or topics: [email protected], or via Twitter (X) or Instagram via @fetalmedcast.

Music by Crowander ('Acoustic romance') used under creative commons licence. Podcast created, hosted and edited by Dr Jane Currie.

Send us a text

Welcome to a special bonus episode! Recorded live at the RCOG Annual Academic Meeting in January 2024, organised by the Blair Bell Research Society. Join us in conversation with Professor Lucilla Poston, co-hosted with the fabulous Dr Neil Ryan (a clinical academic and subspecialty trainee in gynae-oncology).

This is also a chance to celebrate the RCOG Annual Academic Meeting and learn a bit more about the Blair Bell Research Society. With thanks to the RCOG and BBRS for permission to share the recording. 

Professor Poston's bio:

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/lucilla-poston

Professor Lucilla Poston CBE is a Professor of Maternal & Fetal Health in the School of Life Course & Population Sciences. Her research spans maternal nutrition, obesity and gestational diabetes with a focus on the short as well as longer term consequences for the health of mother and the child. Approaches include studies in mother -child cohorts and development of pragmatic interventions in pregnancy to improve pregnancy outcome and child health. Her team also interrogate the early life origins of disease through maternal and child electronic health record data linkages.

Professor Poston is President of the International Society for Developmental Origins of Health and Disease, an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (FRCOG) and was elected Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2009. She was appointed NIHR Senior Investigator, Emeritus in 2017, having succeeded twice in open competition. In 2017, Lucilla was awarded a CBE for services to Women’s Health. In 2024 Lucilla was listed by Research.com as being one of the top 1000 female scientists in the world, according to the H Index.

Previously Professor Poston was the Tommy's Chair of Maternal & Fetal Health and the Director of the Tommy’s Maternal & Fetal Research Unit based at St Thomas’ Hospital, and the Head of the School of Life Course & Population Sciences.

RCOG Annual Academic Meeting info:

The RCOG Annual Academic meeting ‘Save the date’ and call for abstracts has just been announced! 6-7 Feb 2025

https://rcog.eventsair.com/annual-academic-meeting-feb-2025

Dr Neil Ryan's bio:

https://www.ed.ac.uk/profile/neilryan

Neil is the RCOG Subspecialty Trainee in Gynaecology Oncology at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and a CSO/NES Clinical Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh.

He was awarded a personal MRC fellowship to undertake a PhD at the University of Manchester (UoM) which he completed in 2020. His thesis was supervised by Professors Crosbie and Evans.

His PhD led to a change in NICE guidelines relating to the testing of womb cancer along with numerous publications, presentations, invited lectures and awards.

Neil's work was recognised by a President's Doctorial Scholarship and awarded the UoM's highest postgraduate award: The President's Medal. Neil was recently awarded the William Blair Bell Lecture by the RCOG.

British Gynaecological Cancer Society (BGCS) podcast info:

https://www.bgcs.org.uk/professionals/new-podcast-series/

Podcast information:

We have not included any patient identifiable information, and this podcast is intended for professional education rather than patient information (although welcome anyone interested in the field to listen). Please get in touch with feedback or suggestions for future guests or topics: [email protected], or via Twitter (X) or Instagram via @fetalmedcast.

Music by Crowander ('Acoustic romance')

Send us a text

Welcome to the fifth episode of season four of Conversations in Fetal Medicine, in conversation with Professor Lawrence Impey.

Professor Impey's bio:

Qualification MBBS 1988 from the Middlesex

Undergraduate degree 1985 in Oxford

Trained in London, Dublin and Oxford. MRCOG 1993, FRCOG 2007

Consultant in Obstetrics and Fetal Medicine in Oxford since 2001.

Full time NHS clinical consultant, director of tertiary referral Oxford Fetal Medicine Unit

23 years as practising obstetrician and fetal medicine specialist

Director of subspeciality training in maternal and fetal medicine, Oxford

Clinical Lead for Maternity Health Innovation Oxford and Thames Valley

Visiting Professor in fetal medicine, Oxford University

Author of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Impey and Child 6th (ed in preparation), and Oxford handbook of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (current is 3rd ed) Collins, Arulkumaran, Hayes, Arambage and Impey

Multiple blood chapters eg Oxford Textbook of Medicine

Lead author of two greentop guidelines

Publications on labour and the role of intrapartum risk factors, breech presentation, preterm birth and fetal growth restriction and risk factors for adverse outcomes

Current research projects: predicting and preventing stillbirth, Machine learning based intrapartum CTG interpretation

Father of Cicely and Orlando and grandfather of Fergus

Podcast information:

We have not included any patient identifiable information, and this podcast is intended for professional education rather than patient information (although welcome anyone interested in the field to listen). Please get in touch with feedback or suggestions for future guests or topics: [email protected], or via Twitter (X) or Instagram via @fetalmedcast.

Music by Crowander ('Acoustic romance') used under creative commons licence. Podcast created, hosted and edited by Dr Jane Currie.

Send us a text

Welcome to the fourth episode of season four of Conversations in Fetal Medicine, in conversation with Stephanie Ernst, founder of the charity TAPS Support.

Stephanie's bio:

Stephanie Ernst: Twin mum, TAPS nerd, expert patient and Australian in the Netherlands (self identified as a clogaroo). 

After delivering monochorionic twins at 31 weeks,, Stephanie struggled to find quality information about Twin Anemia Polycythemia Sequence (TAPS), the diagnosis she had received for her daughters.  This led to the creation of a Facebook community, and later grew to the charity TAPS Support, 

Her aim is to help continue research into the complications of monochorionic twins, through actively raising funds for research projects, supporting researchers of the future, and talking with professionals about the perspective of parents with complicated twins pregnancies, and the additional considerations they may need. (And promises she's not out to start fights or arguments, she just has a lot to say).  She also has a passion for breaking down medical jargon, and helping families understand their diagnosis through giving good quality research in everyday terms. Patients should be an active part of their own care team, and need the resources and support to do this.

She actively publishes research with two other TTTS mothers, and writes and speaks regularly on twin-related topics, as well as many other subjects, and works in marketing, specifically for companies dealing with clinical research, training and coaching.. In her spare time, she hangs out with the coolest twins ever (her daughters) and her long suffering, very patient husband, and drinks a lot of coffee (and doesn't mind the occasional G&T!).

Find a portfolio of her work here: https://stephanieernst.nl/portfolio/

For more information on TAPS Support, visit https://www.tapssupport.com/

Additional resources: 

ICOMBO Declaration of rights & statement of needs for twins and higher order multiples: https://icombo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Declaration-of-Rights-2022.pdf 

European Standards of Care for Newborn Health: https://newborn-health-standards.org/

NICE Guidelines for Twin and Triple Pregnancy: https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng137

Podcast information:

We have not included any patient identifiable information, and this podcast is intended for professional education rather than patient information (although welcome anyone interested in the field to listen). Please get in touch with feedback or suggestions for future guests or topics: [email protected], or via Twitter (X) or Instagram via @fetalmedcast.

Music by Crowander ('Acoustic romance') used under creative commons licence. Podcast created, hosted and edited by Dr Jane Currie.