A leading doctor at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon has received presidential recognition for a lifetime of work dedicated to not only helping patients, but supporting the next generation of healthcare professionals.
Dr Michael Natarajan was given the President’s Award by the Royal College of Anaesthetists at the end of 2017 after colleagues at the Swindon hospital put his name forward for the prestigious prize.
He was chosen for the sought-after accolade by a panel of experts, who considered a long list of potential winners from nominations that had been submitted throughout the year.
Speaking in Swindon after collecting the award in person from college president Dr Liam Brennan, Michael said: “I was absolutely elated to receive this honour, which is the highest form of recognition a professional body can give.
“Just to know my colleagues thought of me when they heard about this award is very moving, so to actually meet the president and bring the award home is something else altogether.
“As healthcare professionals, we don’t do what we do for praise or for thanks, but because we enjoy helping others, which is especially true for me.
“It’s fantastic for me to be able to use my experience of healthcare to support younger colleagues, who are just starting out in their career.
“Being able to watch someone grow professionally is extremely rewarding and I look forward to being able to help more and more students over the coming years.”
Although an anaesthetist by trade, Dr Natarajan has spent more than two decades training budding doctors in the art of resuscitation and has, in recent years, developed GWH’s Simulation Suite into one of the country’s leading training facilities for medical students.
In 2016, Dr Natarajan’s innovative approach to training caught the attention of China’s hospital elite, with a dozen of the country’s top healthcare CEOs travelling the 5,000 miles to Swindon to see Michael and the Simulation Suite in action.
Michael’s work in supporting up-and-coming healthcare workers has also seen him take groups of fourth year medical students to Uganda.
Under his leadership, the students supported local medical teams with projects relating to tropical medicine and public health, which are some of the biggest problems facing communities in central Africa.
Away from his work in Swindon, Dr Natarajan has been Medical Director for the Resuscitation Council’s European Paediatric Advanced Life Support (EPALS) faculty, which teaches medical professionals how to respond to a child experiencing a circulatory or respiratory failure.
For more information, visit www.rcoa.ac.uk.
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