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Welcome to season 1  of Conversations in Fetal Medicine, a podcast about the people who work in this field. This episode is an interview with Professor Christoph Lees. We talked about his path into fetal medicine, its challenges and joys, some of the research he's been involved with including the TRUFFLE study and High Intensity Focussed Ultrasound (HIFU), training, and his tips for people working in fetal medicine. See below for a more detailed biography. 

We have not included any patient identifiable information, and this podcast is intended for professional education rather than patient information. Please get in touch with feedback or suggestions for future guests or topics: [email protected]. 

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

Christoph is Professor of Obstetrics as Imperial College London; Honorary Consultant in Obstetrics and Head of Specialty for Fetal Medicine at the Centre for Fetal Care, Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust; Clinical Director for Fetal Medicine for North West London and Visiting Professor KU Leuven (Belgium). 

Christoph qualified from Guy's Hospital, London in 1990. Following subspecialty accreditation in fetal-maternal medicine at King's College Hospital, London he established the fetal medicine unit at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge in 2001 and inaugurated the RCOG MFM subspecialty programme in 2006.

His research interest is on fetal assessment and in particular the use of Doppler ultrasound to assess the health of the baby, scanning in labour, and non-invasive fetal surgery. He is the Chief Investigator of The Trial of Umbilical and Fetal Flow in Europe (TRUFFLE), a Collaboration of 51 Centres across Europe; co-founder of the International Working Group of Maternal Haemodynamics and Intrapartum ultrasound ISLANDs group. He is a Board member of the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynaecology (ISUOG) 2015-2023, is chairman of the ISUOG Doppler and vascular imaging group and member then chair of the ISUOG Safety Committee (2018-2022).

Professor Lees was awarded £2.2m grant from the Medical Research Council for first in human studies of high-intensity focused ultrasound in 2017, a £2.5m grant from the NIHR in 2019 to undertake the TRUFFLE 2 RCT and a £2.1M grant from the NIHR for a study on ultrasound of breech pregnancy at 36 weeks in 2023. In 2020 Professor Lees was awarded £253k by the MRC for the PANCOVID project, a Global registry of women affected by COVID-19 during pregnancy. He has published widely in scientific journals and has authored textbooks on fetal growth restriction, maternal haemodynamics and the widely read Dewhurst’s Textbook of Obstetrics & Gynaecology.

He has a strong interest in healthcare funding, medical regulatory issues and mentorship. With Professor Steve Smith, he set up the campaign group Doctors for Reform (2003-2011) comprising 1000 senior doctors that argued for a European type social health insurance system to supplement the NHS tax funded model. He has written papers for Civitas and Reform on the feasibility of this approach. He has written widely on GMC reform, was a consultant staff council mentor at Addenbrooke’s (2010-2013), Chair of the Addenbrooke’s Local Negotiating Committee and is a co-founder of the RCOG Supporting our Doctors group (2017).