To find out how you can nominate your #EchoHero, click here.
Nominated by Bart Olechowski
Louise is a brilliant echocardiographer - smart, kind, easily approachable and very professional. Well done Louise and thank you for your help and your hard work.
Nominated by Alice Hatch
Over the last 12 months Jenni has worked tirelessly on the new BSE pilot training program and had amazing success with the students under her supervision. She has managed to do this whilst maintaining her own clinical skills, publishing work in the echo journal and all while having two young children to care for at home. She is an asset to our department!
Nominated by Muhammad Rahman
Dr Mandeville has incorporated Echo in his clinical practice which has revolutionised the way we practice Intensive care at BHNHST. He uses echo very confidently and efficiently in critical care and uses it as an important tool for overall patient assessment. He then contextualise his echo findings to formulate comprehensive care for acutely unwell patients. Justin is also a great teacher, and has directly or indirectly taught and preached echo throughout the department over last 8 years or so. He is a role model in Intensive Care and Perioperative Medicine. A Hero of real life!
Nominated by Davina Sadyakeerthy
Miça is an impeccable example of who a cardiac physiologist should thrive to be. She has been a great example, working hard during the pandemic and by being a supportive mentor. She takes time out of her day to ensure training has been done and dedicates herself to teaching others. She always has a positive attitude and her work ethic is admirable!
Nominated by Wendy Gamlin
Cathy is an enthusiastic and dedicated trainer, patient and encouraging to all who work with her and always happy to share her extensive knowledge and experience. Her bubbly personality, warm smile and kind words are just what we need when we’ve had a tough day.
Nominated by Kuldeepa Veeratterapillay
Alice is a fantastic cardiac physiologist who works at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead and is a true #EchoHero. As my formal mentor for my BSE accreditation, she has always gone over and above in ensuring the teaching and training provided is of excellent standard. She has also shown excellent initiative and is always willing to work very hard to provide the best patient care. She has been an asset to the department particularly during challenging Covid times. She Is always flexible, organised and brilliant at multitasking and a great role model to aspire to.
Nominated by John Bramwell
Dr Parnell has been involved in teaching TOE and focused Intensive Care Echocardiography at the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield for many years. A major reason for her nomination is that she has created a well-established fellowship in cardiothoracic anaesthesia and TOE. Everyone who has done the fellowship has benefited from her teaching and supervision. She has also been an examiner for the TOE exam for many years.
Nominated by Samantha Hill
Caroline has been and continues to be, an inspiration to so many of us. Having served 41 years in the NHS she first became BSE accredited in 1997, and built the Echo service at Southmead Hospital from nothing but hard work and determination. She’s continued to be integral to the evolution of the accredited service it is today. Caroline is an excellent teacher who has supported countless physiologists and Specialist Registrars to achieve BSE accreditation. Always approachable, she ensures her trainees get the very best foundations in echocardiography, putting their needs first, no matter how busy she is. Caroline - My inspiration. My Echo Hero. Thank you.
Nominated by Lubna Khan
Dr Fakher E Fayaz has contributed a lot in both TTE and TOE, particularly intraoperatively TOE and FICE in countries like Pakistan. He has, and is still, conducting workshops in different cities to train young physicians in TTE, TOE and FICE.
Nominated by Sharon Herity
Orlagh is a wonderful boss who on a daily basis battles pain from an underlying neck issue caused by a road traffic accident some years previously. As we know echo can be somewhat physically demanding, however she does not allow this to interfere with the many echocardiograms she performs, always with a smile on her face and a willingness to provide a standard of care second to none to those fortunate enough to encounter her sunny disposition and wonderful deep and hearty laugh. Orlagh recently underwent neck and shoulder surgery and despite this, all she wants to do is return to her beloved echo room!
Nominated by Anna Goodhart
Bruno goes above and beyond for his patients and colleagues every single day. He is a superb teacher and has unbelievable patience with echocardiography trainees; always finding time to review scans and reports and to give advice. His positivity and work ethic are infectious and benefit everyone around him.
Nominated by Mostafa Eladawy
Dr Mahesh Prabhu, who is a consultant cardiothoracic anaesthetist and intensivist at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne, is very well known to the BSE as he has been a member of the society for over 20 years. He has taken several roles within the society, including head examiner and TOE exam director several times, he has also served on the board of BSE and has been an active speaker in many of the BSE conferences over the past years. Mahesh continues to successfully run a TOE course in Newcastle upon Tyne, which has been running once or twice a year for the past decade and serving candidates from the north east of England who wish to become accredited echocardiographers. Dr Prabhu has featured many times in many renowned publications and contributed significantly to manuscript writing and different academic activity.
Nominated by Georgina Ooues
Helen is our Echo Lead, always striving to improve herself and the service. Over the last 12 months she kept the Department above water despite the Covid-19 challenges, set up dedicated ACHD echo lists, passed her written BSE CHD exam, and is undergoing her Scientist Training Programme (STP) Equivalence. She is an asset to our Department!
Nominated by Viki Jenkins
Liana always has a very strong work ethic but during the pandemic she has demonstrated exceptional commitment to ensuring that echo services continue for prompt diagnosis and management. Liana has worked tirelessly towards the development of a brand new mobile echocardiography service and the vehicle will be delivered in August this year. As well as all this she has continued to support new staff and existing staff with their development and training, always being available and helping in innovative ways.
Nominated by Ahmed Elserwey
Tom is a senior echocardiographer in our department. He has been always brilliant, supportive, always tend to teach. You can easily know when Tom is on call when you see him scanning patients 7:30 am even on a Saturday. Thank you for all your help and support.
Nominated by Maria Bland
Julie has worked for the NHS for over 40 years and lead the echo department at the Newcastle trust for as long as I care to remember. She is so patient-focused, hard working and kind. She has guided dozens of us through our BSE and continues to be the one we all go to for those difficult to word phrases on reports. Today marks the start of her semi-retirement and stepping back of her leadership role at the trust. I’d love it if you’d honour her kindness and commitment.
Nominated by Jennifer Spicer
For many years, Lisa has contributed her time to help teach registrars, physiologists and anaesthetic FICE consultants to be successful BSE candidates. She finishes after hours, and misses lunch to help her students. I can only say how amazing, caring and supportive she has been and deserves a hero status.
Nominated by Sevda Ward
Claire puts her patients before herself and always goes above and beyond with her echo scans. She has been instrumental in teaching and educating all those who she has worked with.
Nominated by Laura Winzer
Vitor is both highly knowledgeable and a fantastic teacher. Offering support and his abilities with a calm head in every situation, Vitor always works to the gold standard and I’m sure he’s his own worst critic. He always finds time in his day to be kind, often going above and beyond for his allied health colleagues. Our team wouldn’t be the same without him.
Nominated by Prabhdeep Kaur & Sarb Clare
Naveed is a Consultant Echocardiographer who regularly holds his own Echo MDTs to allow all staff to add their echos if they have any issue. He helps them to come to a conclusion and explains how to approach difficult cases. He also takes time out during his own clinics to help you report complex pathology. Additionally, he helps juniors with logbooks, creates dedicated lists for trainees in pathology they struggle in, and conducts regular teaching sessions for anyone who would like to attend, alongside all of his regular clinical responsibilities.
Nominated by Niall Keenan
Rosalind Webb is a true #EchoHero. She is our lead echo physiologist at West Herts NHS Trust. She is one of those amazing NHS workers for whom nothing is ever too much trouble and who give so much of themselves for the benefit of patients, the service and their team. She has completely transformed our echo service and she has given fantastic leadership to the echo team during the pandemic. For inpatients our service has been re-focussed and we can now do all scans in under 24h on new equipment that she has managed to acquire. Our outpatient service hits its targets despite a huge increase in workload. She has completely changed and updated all our IT systems not just for echo but across cardiology. She has been our lead echo physiologist for training and has mentored countless physiologists and cardiology trainees through accreditation. She has done much of this in her own time. And on top of that she is an inspirational colleague to all and a wonderful human being. As a consultant group we are unanimous in nominating her as our #EchoHero
Nominated by Teresa Rutigliano
G Sunthar Kanaganayagam has given a remarkable leadership to the team. ‘No’ is not on his vocabulary. He is tireless and always available for some advice, for an echo review, for extra shifts, despite the huge amount of workload he is engaged in. A true source of inspiration is the extreme care he has for the patients and the service. Nothing is enough for him, there is always room on the top, we can all do more and better. The echo service has improved a lot with his support and there is a lot more planned to do in order to offer the best quality of care to all our patients. If we are looking for a EchoHero going far above and beyond his role - Dr K is our #EchoHero in suit and tie.
Nominated by Cathy West
We believe Joyce has super powers. She is an outstanding echocardiographer, a fantastic teacher and a natural leader – anticipating the needs of her team and tackling complex lab issues with this cheeky smile that says ‘that was easy, give me more!’. An #EchoHero for sure.
Nominated by Joao Ramos
Dr Richard Fisher produces amazing work in the field of Echo. I had the opportunity to be taught and mentored by Richard, learning from him everything that I know relating to Echo. He has been mostly responsible for motivating, supporting and teaching many health care professionals in the acquisition of Echo skills, and without him none of the Critical Care professionals would be able to get through different levels of accreditation, such as FUSIC and BSE level 1 and 2.
Nominated by Ayman Helal
Emma is a chief physiologist at Portsmouth Hospitals University Trust, BSE accredited and undergoing BSE stress echo accreditation. Hospital mentor and keen developer in all thing focused echo related; Emma has worked on inter-departmental echo relationships, and to date has been key in both ICU and ED echo skills and training for SpRs and ACPs. She is currently undertaking a part-time PhD with the University of Portsmouth which focuses on the role of advanced echo techniques and biomarkers for detecting heart failure on ICU patients with sepsis and septic shock. This is an NIHR portfolio study and one of the first to look at long term outcomes in this cohort. She is also an honorary senior lecturer at the University of Portsmouth, teaching cardiology-specific modules on the MSc Clinical Exercise course. Personally, she is the most supportive person in the department, keen on her work, energetic, and always positive.
Nominated by Cassandra Hammond
Not only was Jim my mentor and supervisor, but he is incredibly patient and kind when teaching the countless physiologists, cardiology trainees and fellows. His knowledge is immense and he is the echo guru!
Nominated by Sadie Bennett
In a team of EchoHero’s here at UHNM, Jaco outshines us all with his ever present smile, endless team spirit and willingness to help patients and colleagues in times of need. He is a true asset to our team and we love him!
Nominated by Rhiannon Lee
Jennifer Torkington is not just a brilliant echocardiographer but also a wonderful and caring person. Jennifer has worked as a physiologist for almost 40 years and brings a wealth of knowledge to our team. She performs physiologist-led valve clinics and physiologist-led stress echo clinics. Jennifer has been instrumental in the teaching and education that goes on at the Princess of Wales hospital. She participates in local BSE courses, she is a FICE mentor and a BSE examiner. Jennifer has won an award – ‘Welsh Physiologist of Year in 2017’ - because of her dedication and commitment – not just to echo services but cardiac physiology as a whole. She goes above and beyond for patients as well as her own staff. We are all extremely grateful to have Jennifer in our department because she is so inspirational and very supportive.
Nominated by Panagiota Mitropoulou
Jodie is an amazing colleague to work with, always smiling and trying to help in any way she can. She is very competent and runs a physiologist led TOE service. She is also an excellent educator and she always goes above and beyond to help physiologists and cardiology registrars to get their BSE accreditation.
Nominated by Sara Lourenco
I would like to nominate Tiago Miguel Clerigo Marta as an echo hero as he worked throughout the pandemic as a chief cardiac physiologist just after finishing his BSE accreditation, stayed away from his family in Portugal and even changed hospitals during the first peak wave from Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital to Royal Papworth Hospital (a much more specialised hospital in cardiology). He is the very sweetest cardiac physiologist with every single patient I’ve known and he’s a very hard worker always trying to learn more and more. For all the reasons stated I think is an echo hero.
Nominated by Sophie Draycott
I am nominating these colleagues as they have gone above and beyond to set up a training programme for the registrars training in echo and often do a lot of the work for this in their own time. They run sessions ("Tea and cake don't be late - echo teaching") during their lunch break and often provide home baked cakes to entice attendance, however the quality of the teaching and word of mouth now brings the attendees in. These two are inspirational to other members of staff and always strive for excellence both of them are working towards their BSE stress echo education and are constantly pushing boundaries and striving for excellence through physiologist led services.