Ady is a former Royal Marine of 20 years, finishing his time as Chief Instructor of the Physical Training Department at the Royal Marines Commando Training Centre at Lympstone in Devon.

In 2000 Ady was awarded the MBE for his part in a mountaineering expedition during which he became the 10^th Briton to summit the world’s third highest mountain. Kangchenjunga in the Eastern Himalaya stands 8,586m or 28,186ft above sea level and to date this remains the highest altitude ever reached without oxygen by a British Serviceman.

Ady left the military in 2004 and whilst he now finds himself employed to do many different things, he remains a freelance coach, working with organisations, looking at behaviours and facilitating the development of people at all levels. He has been a fulltime mountaineering instructor and continues to work in the outdoors when good opportunities arise. Those good opportunities include helping to deliver the non-medical aspects of the Polar and Jungle Courses for Expedition Medicine, leading expeditions for Across The Divide, taking people ski-touring in Norway and working on other projects around the world such as the training of scientists in Northern Canada for the Catlin Arctic Survey and The Polar Challenge (a competitive, 350 mile team race to the Magnetic North Pole) where he headed the instructional team in 2008.

Ady is passionate about the benefits of the outdoors and how challenging environments can be used to develop skills and - more importantly - confidence and great team and leadership behaviours. He believes variety, working with people that inspire him and family time to be his best routes to contentment. Ady has held the Mountain Instructor Certificate (MIC) since 2001. He is a cross-country ski instructor and is a licensed NLP Business Practitioner. Brought up in the Midlands, he now lives in Devon. Ady is married to Hilary – a chartered accountant and businesswoman - and they have three children.

Alex  is our communications man on the Expedition Medicine team and has attended a number of Expedition Medicine courses. He is a communications specialist and a senior officer in the Royal Marines and works as a freelance guide for Across the Divide Expeditions. He has been guiding in South Africa, Namibia and China in addition to his work commitments in the Middle and Far East, Iraq and Afghanistan, West Africa and the Arctic. Whilst not medically trained, Alex has combat medical experience from Iraq, West Africa and Afghanistan.

Dr Amy Hughes is currently a specialist registrar in pre-hospital medicine working for the Helicopter Emergency Medical Team (HEMS) in Kent. She has been involved in expedition and remote  medicine for the last 8 years, providing medical cover for all extremes of environments, including developing and leading the medical cover for a desert ultra marathon in Namibia. Other expeditions have included treks through the jungles of Belize and Borneo; adventure races across Costa Rica, Namibia and Nepal and dog sledding across Northern Norway  - as well as MSF's missions, her first of which is to Sri Lanka.

Amy is involved extensively in the teaching of expedition and remote medicine and took over as Medical Director of Expedition & Wilderness Medicine in November 2011. Amy completed the Diploma of Tropical Medicine in 2006, has a European Masters in Disaster Medicine and is en route to gaining a Post Graduate Certificate in Aeromedical Retrieval.

Andy was born and went through high school / college in Salford and then went onto Liverpool Medical School. Andy has now been qualified for 15 years during which time has worked in various hospitals in Medicine, Ophthalmology, A + E and Anesthetics. He is currently dividing his time between general practice and the local minor injuries unit. 

Holder of BLS, ATLS and PHTLS certificates, Andy has also spent 18 months working in New Zealand, been a Ships Doctor on a transatlantic yacht race and is the Team Doctor for the Penrith Mountain Rescue Team as well as an examiner for the Lake District mountain rescue teams. He travelled as an expedition doctor with Across the Divide Expeditions to Nepal, Patagonia, Namibia, South Africa, Chilie and Peru. Recent trips have included Iceland and Greece to teach mountain rescue medicine, an off road cycle across the centre of Iceland and a trip to climb Mont Blanc and experience the delights of acute mountain sickness.  Andy's interests include winter climbing, mountain biking, photography and mountain medicine.

Ben has worked in the Accident and Emergency Department in Sheffield for over 11 years and is an A&E Department Charge Nurse and an Emergency Nurse Practitioner.

Ben’s pre hospital care career started 15 years ago when he started as an aspirant for Northumberland National Park Search and Rescue Team, he then moved to Sheffield in 1994 and joined Edale Mountain Rescue Team: one of Britain’s busiest.

In 2001 he started working for Poles Apart as a location medic, assisting in providing film/TV location safety and medical support in extreme environments including Greenland and Iceland. Since 2004 his pre hospital career went south to Antarctica with Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions (ALE). ALE's field camp at Patriot Hills is home to one of the world's most remote field hospitals. From there he has helped to provide medical and rescue cover to expeditions skiing to the South Pole, climbing Mount Vinson, running the Antarctic Marathon and 100km race alongside escorting clients on flights to the South Pole.

Caroline qualified in Medicine at Newcastle in 1993, and has worked in various specialties, including anaesthetics. A planned six months abroad turned into two and a half years; this included extensive travelling, 2 Raleigh International Expeditions (one as Chief Medic), mountaineering on Mount Cook and a stint with Mount Hutt Ski Patrol in New Zealand.

After a Masters in Sports Medicine Caroline moved to the Lake District to complete her GP training and now works part-time in Keswick. Caroline has been a Expedition Medical Officer with Across the Divide Expeditions on thirteen expeditions in four different continents and in 2004 she was the Medical Officer for the Richard Lander Expedition in Nigeria. She and the Police Expedition Society traced the route of an oft-forgotten British Explorer - Richard Lander: following the River Niger for 700km. Caroline has also lectured for the Newcastle University student-selected Wilderness Medicine module, Liverpool School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Expedition Medicine Course and the International Mountain Guide qualification at Glenmore Lodge. She is also the Medical Advisor to BSES, British Schools Exploring Society.

A Specialist Registrar in Anaesthetics / Intensive Care in Yorkshire, currently at Leeds General Infirmary, Catherine studied medicine at Cambridge then Oxford University where her main interest was lightweight rowing. Her career has involved emergency and general medicine as well as a year as an anaesthetist in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2005, where she participated in secondary retrievals for the New Zealand Flying Doctors Service.

In 2004 she successfully completed the UIAA UK Diploma in Mountain Medicine. She has since worked as medic on worldwide charity treks and bike rides. She has climbed and trekked independently all over the world and her main interests are fell & trailrunning, cycling, mountaineering and eating cake!

Irish-born Catherine did a performing arts degree in New York and Dublin before moving to the UK to work at the British Medical Journal 16 years ago.

Catherine has the adrenalin gene, she enjoys fencing, snowboarding, scuba diving and horse riding.  She has backpacked solo around Africa and spent Christmas Day one year bungee jumping off Victoria Falls. She has also been involved in an dog sledding expedition in Arctic Norway.

Catherine is your main point of contact for Expedition and Wilderness Medicine course enquires.

Ceri’s passions are people and their behaviours. He believes that concentration on great behaviours is the way for all individuals and teams to reach their true potential. Ceri has spent the past 20 years working as a sports and adventure coach, operating on rivers and in mountain ranges throughout the world.

Ceri previously spent 22 years in the Royal Marine Commandos specialising in Physical and Adventurous Training. Alongside his service as a soldier he became a British Canoe Union (BCU) Level 5 Coach, earned the Mountain Leader Training Board (MLTB) Mountain Instructor Award (MIA) and the Winter Mountain Leader Award (ML Winter). Throughout his commando service he spent numerous winters in northern Norway which played to his strengths. Here in the Arctic he gained considerable travel and polar survival experience. During his time with the Royal Marines, Ceri also played representative rugby and squash and was a member of the Great Britain Dragon Boating Team, paddling in two World Championships.

Ceri works now as a professional outdoor coach, a personal and team performance coach and an expedition leader. Together with his outdoor qualifications he is a certified Master Practitioner in Neuro Linguistic Programming and a Master Practitioner in Hypnotherapy and never ceases to be excited by the power of language in all forms of coaching.Ceri’s expedition and corporate work conspire to take him away from home a great deal. Ceri has successfully led trips to Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Kenya and Mount Kinabalu; crossed the Continental Divide in Costa Rica, trekked the Great Wall of China and spent several weeks dog sledding in Norway. He has led over 40 trips for Across the Divide Expeditions.

Chris is a Consultant Vascular Surgeon at UHCW NHS Trust, and is also a Professor at Warwick Medical School. Chris has lectured to Expedition Medicine about frostbite and offers phone or email advice on the subject.Chris started climbing whilst at school and has continued to travel all over the world to fulfill this passion. His altitude research interest began with the Birmingham Medical Research Expeditionary Society, and more recently he has been involved with the UCL team at CASE.Chris took part in the 2006 Xtreme Cho Oyu expedition to Tibet, as one of the medical officers and was the Deputy Climbing Leader of the 2007 Caudwell Xtreme Everest Expedition. He summited both Cho Oyu (8201m) and Everest (8848m) and has the dubious distinction of having the second lowest arterial gases ever recorded in an adult (at 8,400m)!

Chris’s has the Diploma in Mountain Medicine and his mountain medical interests include frostbite, non-freezing cold injuries, extreme altitude physiology and the brain at high altitude. With Dr Paul Richards and Dr Dave Hillebrandt, he runs the UK internet based frostbite service

Chris’s real job is as a vascular/renal transplant surgeon with a particular interest in the management of the high risk carotid patient. His PhD is on the hypoxic and ischaemic brain.

Chris is currently an academic registrar in Infectious Disease and Tropical Medicine at University College London Hospital and has extensive experience of remote medicine.

A race to the Magnetic North Pole in 2004 lead to an enduring interest in the Arctic. He was the doctor and navigator for a recreation in Greenland of Scott's South Pole expedition filmed with Bruce Parry and has returned several times to the Russian and Canadian Arctic to teach survival, film and do research.

Chris has been the medical consultant and location medic for more than 12 documentary series including BBC's Tribe, Amazon and Human Planet. He has also presented several documentaries about humanitarianism, science and remote indigenous societies.

Filming with remote populations in Congo, Peru and Russia lead to humanitarian work. Chris is a Patron of the medical aid agency Merlin and is also on their Emergency Response Team. He has worked as a Medical Coordinator in emergencies in Burma, Central African Republic and Pakistan.

After many years of climbing Chris was part of the team on the 2008 Caudwell Xtreme Everest Research expedition to Cho Oyu. A trip to Uganda to study worms in chimpanzees lead to his current interest at UCL in primate viruses.

Dave Marshall is a HEMS paramedic working for the past two years with the Helicopter Emergency Medical Service in Kent. He began his medical career with the London Ambulance Service where he gained extensive pre hospital experience and was one of the first crews on scene at the Paddington rail crash. After transferring to Kent in 2004 he has continued to work in a variety of roles and in 2008 set up the county’s first Paramedic Cycle Response Unit.

Dave’s first involvement in Expedition Medicine was as part of the medical team working on the Namibia Ultra Marathon in 2010. Following this he has been involved in a number of UK events, a 400km charity cycle across Cuba and trekked up Mount Kinabalu in Borneo. He has recently been involved in teaching the pre-hospital aspect of expedition and remote medicine.

He lives in North Kent and is married with three young children. His absolute passion is football – both playing and watching.

David is a Hong Kong based entrepreneur who was raised in the former British colony. His activities are as diverse in their field as they are wide spread around the world; ranging from retailing in the Philippines, manufacturing in China and the UK, warehouse distribution in Europe and he also has interests in a drag racing team in Holland. David's retail business operating in the Philippines has shown tremendous growth since inception and has won numerous sales and marketing awards for its winning performance competing against similar retail companies throughout Asia and the Pacific - a successful business working proudly with the highly respected Philippine Tourism Authority.

Eight years ago, David invested in Douglas, a flagging 60 year old British equipment manufacturer which employs 130 people in Cheltenham and produces specialised aviation equipment. The company was turned around and featured on Top Gear in 2010 as well as in the James Bond film, 'Casino Royale'. Recently it was announced that Douglas has been awarded two prestigious Queen's Awards for Enterprise - one for Innovation and the other for Sales Growth.

David travels extensively for business and pleasure. He takes time out to visit remote locations in Tibet, Bhutan, Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka, (he was there at the time of the tsunami and stayed to give assistance). He spends about a quarter of his time in Somerset looking for ways to promote Hong Kong and British industry, something which he looks at as a particular challenge.

David and Mark, founder of Expedition & Wilderness Medicine, have been friends for nearly 30 years and their mutual respect for one another allows them to share and bounce ideas off each other- thanks to their diverse backgrounds and interests they're able to look at these ideas from opposing angles and explore as well as develop programs for the greater good.

David is married to his childhood friend Cara, has two teenage children from his first marriage and they have two dogs and two cats.

Denny is a Specialist Registrar in Critical Care and Anaesthesia at UCL. She is the Deputy Director of the Centre for Altitude, Space and Extreme Environment Medicine at UCL and has extensive experience in expedition medicine.

Denny has research interests in altitude medicine and diving and hyperbaric medicine and is a keen climber and diver.   She was the Expedition medical officer for the Caudwell Xtreme Everest Research Expedition in 2007 responsible for more than 250 climbers, investigators and volunteers in the field. She was also the expedition Deputy Research Leader and is currently completing a phd in altitude physiology.

In 2005, Denny worked as a Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine Fellow at the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Australia treating divers with decompression sickness. She has spent nine months working as the expedition medical officer on three marine biology diving expeditions in Africa, Fiji and Oman.   Denny has also worked as a doctor for Across the Divide Expeditions since 1999. She has accompanied groups on hiking, white water rafting and mountain biking expeditions in remote locations including Guatemala, Nepal, Patagonia, Lapland and Peru.

Born and bred in Namibia, Faan is Expedition Medicine's mover and fixer in Southern Africa and Namibia. As he says about himself: ’A stern fella whose smile is only used sparingly but is ever willing to give a hand, likes new and old folks a lot, prefers to do things the hard way and loves to be challenged. Loves Africa and the wilds and loves it even more to spend time with friends and family in places where one could get bitten or worse!"

Desert Medicine - Namibia

Jim has been flying since 1975: he flew Lightning fighters and Chinook helicopters with the RAF until 1990. After a stint carrying bags for a rich chap, he flew as Police Line and Chief Pilot for 13 years then helped set up 4 air ambulance units in North England. He then worked as Chief Pilot of the Cumbria and Northumbria bases until March 2008. As well as extensive helicopter experience he also enjoys being a part time captain on fixed wing repatriation and medical transfer flights.

Jim is also an accredited Lecturer with Teeside University, and runs quarterly week-long Helicopter Crewmember Courses teaching medics how to work with and crew helicopters.

James is a highly trained paramedic who currently works for one of the Hazardous Area Response Teams in the UK.   He has extensive knowledge and experience of prehospital care inrcluding the specialist subject of providing a medical response to urban search and rescue situations and chemical, biological and radiological events.

He is also employed by a private company, as a remote care paramedic, providing medical and rescue cover to extreme sports events and is travelling to Borneo at the end of this year to work as an expedition medic with Raleigh International.   Along with his paramedic qualifications he holds a BSc (Hons) Physiology and is shortly due to complete a Postgraduate Certificate in Practice Development.

Away from work James will invariably be found in the outdoors, pursuing one of his many sports including cycling, climbing, snowboarding and adventure racing.   His passion lies with white-water kayaking though and this has seen him travelling throughout Britain, the European Alps, Canada and New Zealand in pursuit of crystal clear water and big rapids.

Remote Medicine Training

John has been Mountain Rescue Council Medical Officer for Patterdale MRT for the past 20 years, and British Representative on the International Council for Alpine Rescue (IKAR) as well as a General Practitioner in Penrith, Cumbria.  John elected to work near the mountains and has walked and climbed in the UK for many years.

He started visiting the Alps over 15 years ago and goes both in the summer and winter to indulge in climbing. As one of the Medical Officers for the Patterdale MRT (1985 -) he regularly gets to the sharp end. His particular interests are in hypothermia and monitoring. John has been involved with mountain rescue casualty care development on a national level for 10 years. He co-edited 'Casualty Care in Mountain Rescue'. Published in 2000, it is the standard book for mountain rescue in the UK.

Kathy qualified in 1986 from Edinburgh Dental School and has worked in Maxillofacial Surgery, the Community Dental Service and Newcastle Dental School and Hospital. Her present role is working with those with Special Needs and in the field of Conscious Sedation for Dentistry. Kathy has always enjoyed travelling and shortly after qualifying worked in Australia for 6 months. She has carried out voluntary dentistry in Nepal, Israel and Africa where basic facilities prevail.

"My professional experience and love of travelling have combined to equip me with the knowledge and skills of providing emergency care in remote environments. My involvement with the Expedition Medicine Team allows me to use engage others in the medical profession in the understanding of the provision of basic emergency dental care."

Luanne is a board-certified emergency physician and Fellow of the Academy of Wilderness Medicine who practices in her hometown of Bozeman, Montana. She is a past president of the Wilderness Medical Society, and is the medical director for Yellowstone National Park and Midway-Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. 

Luanne has worked as a volunteer physician in Nepal for the Himalayan Rescue Association (USA) since 1999, and in 2003, she founded the first-ever medical clinic at Mount Everest base camp, which she continues to direct and staff every spring climbing season, along with heading up Expedition & Wilderness Medicine's Mountain Medicine medical training course in Nepal's Khumbu Valley.

Mountain Medicine course

Mark is the founding director of Expedition and Wilderness Medicine and Across the Divide Expeditions and helped in the setting up of the orginal Expemed course established by Dr Stephen Hearns. A Fellow of both the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Society of Arts, Mark has been involved with expeditions for over 27 years and has led and organised expeditions to all of the world's continents, both in desert  and marine environments but also in both polar regions, at altitude and in the world's most remote corners.  Mark is also an award winning photographer with images regularly published in the Sunday Times and Telegraph and National Geographic.

Mark Read is a wildlife biologist based in Australia who specialises in things that bite and have the potential to kill you. One of Australia’s most respected crocodile biologists, Mark has spent 15 years working with these animals in Australia, Papua New Guinea and South Africa. He also has extensive knowledge and experience with snakes and terrestrial and marine venomous and poisonous vertebrates and invertebrates and now specialises in the conservation management of protected species like whales and marine turtles.

He has experience leading expeditions and research teams in remote locations and doing fun things like counting, catching and researching crocodiles and marine turtles and trying to learn more about these misunderstood animals.  

Mark joins Expedition Medicine as an course director and lecturer on our Jungle and Diving Medicine Courses and has experience working in Africa, Antarctica, Borneo, the Maldives, Oman, Papua New Guinea and Central and South America.

"Doc Martin” recently returned from a trek in Peru where none of the clients could be convinced that he was really a doctor. Others are uncertain whether this is a compliment or not, but he continues to take it as one!

On the basis that to have a career means to rush along in a uncontrolled fashion, his career has included studying law at a minor English university, working as joiner, a language teacher, and for the Foreign Office in Latin America, and (honestly!) training in Paediatrics, A&E and General Practice in the People’s Republic of South Yorkshire.

He is happiest running up and skiing down mountains, and sitting in tents in the Antarctic being brought cups of tea by Ben Cooper, with whom he is joined at the hip, having worked together in the UK as doctor and Deputy Team Leader of Edale Mountain Rescue Team, and on numerous Polar and Alpine expeditions . He hasn’t had a real job for years, but is Chief Medical Officer for Poles Apart and Antarctic Logistics & Expeditions, and runs an outdoor activities and gîte business in the French Pyrenees.

Mike holds degrees in Immunology and Medicine from the University of London. He is currently Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine at Southampton General Hospital and Senior Lecturer in Intensive Care Medicine at the Portex Unit, Institute of Child Health, UCL; as well as Honorary Senior Lecturer in high-altitude physiology at UCL; Co-Founder and Director of CASE; and Acting Director of Research and Development at the Whittington Hospital NHS Trust.

Between 2005 and 2008 Mike was the Deputy-Director of the UCL Institute of Human Health and Performance. Mike's research interests include human responses to hypoxia, measuring and improving outcome following high-risk surgery and fluid therapy. He has co-authored more than 60 peer-reviewed scientific publications.

He has been climbing and mountaineering for more than 25 years, has been on 11 high altitude expeditions to the Himalaya and South American Andes (6 as leader) and has extensive remote environment medical experience as medical officer and co-ordinating high altitude medical research projects. Mike led the 2006 Caudwell Xtreme Everest Cho Oyu Expedition and the 2007 Caudwell Xtreme Everest Expedition. He has ascended over 5000m on more than 40 occasions with multiple ascents to, and ski descents from, over 6000m and two ascents of 8000m peaks (Cho Oyu, 8201m, 2006; Everest 8848m, 2007). He is a qualified UK Mountain Leader and is on the Faculty of the UK UIAA Diploma in Mountain Medicine.

In the autumn of 2004 Mike was one of two resident physicians at the Himalayan Rescue Association Aid Post at Pheriche, Everest Base Camp Trek, Nepal.

Mike has been married since Febuary 2006 to Denny Levett who was the Caudwell Xtreme Everest Expedition Medical Officer and one of two Deputy Research Leaders.

Mike Townsend is a writer and lecturer on travel medicine, Honorary Clinical Teacher at the University of Glasgow and Tutor in Travel Medicine at St Martin's College, Lancaster. He is the author of Travel Health for the Primary Care Team and contributor of chapters to other books including Travel Medicine and Migrant Health.

Mike is also a member of the Executive Committee of the British Travel Health Association.

Mike was a GP in Cockermouth for many years and a member of the Cockermouth Mountain Rescue Team. He has participated in several Himalayan expeditions and overland travel through Europe and Asia. He now takes groups abroad involving activities such as trekking and white water rafting, acting as group leader and doctor. These activities take him Europe, North Africa, Nepal, Bhutan, South America and South East Asia.

A product of the English public school system, Neville became sufficiently hardened to bad food and arbitrary discipline to join the navy. The navy became aware at about the same time that he did that they were not ideally suited each to the other, following an unfortunate incident involving a chaplain and a stoker.

After a lotus-eating interlude (coal miner, dude ranch hand and Texan wine waiter) he joined the army. Being small, scruffy and unreliable, he proved not to be ideal material for the Coldstream Guards either and, with a barely suppressed mutual sigh of relief following an unfortunate incident with a Japanese tourist, he slid sideways into special forces. His last job was commanding 22 SAS Regiment. He now runs the family estate at Greystoke (or vice versa).

Nick served as an officer in the Royal Marines for 22 years, travelling and climbing widely during that time. In ‘92 he took part in the British Annapurna 2 Expedition and in ‘93 led his own trip to climb the West Buttress of Mt McKinley in Alaska.  He commanded the Royal Marines Commando Training Centre from 2003 to 2005.

In 2003 Nick led a Royal Navy expedition to climb Everest by its North Ridge; not only did they climb the mountain but his team were instrumental in rescuing two other climbers from above 8000m, the highest mountain rescue on record, for which he was awarded the Royal Humane Society Bronze Medal. 

A keen rock climber and mountaineer since his teens, Nick holds the Mountaineering Instructor (MI)  and International Mountain Leader (MIA) awards. He left the Royal Marines in 2005 to qualify as a teacher and now works as a leadership coach and management consultant. He has led civilian teams to Mongolia, Nepal and the Alps, and when not working can usually be found on a rock face or in a sea kayak!  In 2009 Nick took a team of friends to the Rolwaling Valley in Nepal to attempt an unclimbed mountain called Cheki-go. He has close links with this region, having raised funds to sponsor local Sherpas, three of whom have been able to visit the UK to improve their climbing skills and English language.

Nick joins the Expedition Medicine team in the role of University Liaison which was created to develop interest and access to this exciting specialty for university students studying healthcare, and who might wish to practice medical care in remote or challenging natural environments.

He is currently in his 2nd year of graduate medical school at the University of Southampton. Prior to this Nick worked as an analyst for an international health care consulting company, Sg2, in London  where he examined different qualitative and quantitative trends in health care in the UK and abroad.

Nick however found his interest for extreme medicine during his Doctoral research at the University of Oxford. Here he studied the effect of different types of diet on heart and skeletal muscle energetics – a project funded by the US military who wanted to improve the long term physical and mental endurance capabilities of their combatants in the field. Whilst at Oxford, apart from juggling VIII rowing with his PhD, Nick was involved with the Caudwell Xtreme Everest Research Project and helped collect magnetic resonance imaging data of summit climbers’ heart and skeletal muscles before and after the ascent. This was in order to monitor adaptations in the body to high altitude (and transfer this knowledge into the intensive care setting where patients often struggle with low oxygen utilisation). He was also lucky enough to be one of those who trekked up to Everest Base Camp. Nick’s first degree was in Exercise and Sports Science at the University of Exeter, for which he gained a 1st class BSc with Hons.

Currently Nick is supporting a 4 man ocean rowing crew that are looking to break the world record for the fasted 4 person crew to row across the Indian Ocean in 2011. He is not only training them to row but coordinating physiological and cognitive research on them during the race. This allows him to combine his interest of how humans cope under extreme physical and mental stress with rowing!

Paul is a General Medical Practitioner and member of the Local Medical Committee in a market town in Essex. A comfortable place to live, but a long way from any mountains, though he does manage to escape regularly to Wales, Cumbria and Staffordshire where climbing enthusiasm compensates for ability.

He runs a Travel Clinic from the practice, specialising in remote or difficult itineraries and is an Honorary Lecturer in Travel Medicine at the Department of Academic Travel Medicine & Vaccines, Royal Free Hospital, UCL, London.

Paul is also a director of Medical Expeditions, a research charity with the remit to promote research and education into high altitude medicine and physiology. Previous research expeditions include Everest in 1994 when two members summited; Kangchenjunga base camp in 1998; and Chamlang base camp in 2003. The charity also organises a yearly 3 day high altitude medicine course, and for the past 4 years, a biannual international research conference held in Oxford.

He is a holder of and faculty member of the Diploma of Mountain Medicine for which he is course organiser for the Expedition Medicine course component. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and has contributed to their Expedition Medicine textbook. Other memberships include the International Society of Travel Medicine, Wilderness Medical Society and International Society of Mountain Medicine. Over the last few years he has been on numerous expeditions as diverse as overland desert driving, high altitude mountaineering, tropical rainforest exploration, SCUBA diving or Arctic dog sledding. On many of them he has been the medical officer. Paul has trekked or climbed in numerous countries such as Mexico, Chile, Bolivia, Indonesia, Morocco, Kenya, European Alps and seven visits to Nepal. The latter includes working a season as Staff Physician at the CIWEC Travel Clinic in Kathmandu.

In 2005 he was one of the climbers on the first Caudwell Xtreme Everest pilot expedition to Cho Oyu where he reached 7100m and organised the expedition solar power system.

Piers graduated from Birmingham University with a degree in Physical Education, which he then followed up with a PGCE in PE and English. He then joined the West Midlands Police as a civilian trainer. After 12 months delivering training to cadets and police officers, of all ranks, he secured funding from a trust fund to visit America to research teaching methods in the outdoors.The desire for change and challenge took Piers to Chile in 1996 with Raleigh International as a Project Manager, after which he embarked upon freelance career based in the Peak District.

Piers has an unusual string to his bow in the form of conflict management training. Piers is a student of Taiho-jitsu and enjoys socializing, walking, mountain biking, and home growing of veggies. He has been involved in expeditions to Southern Africa, Australia, Cambodia and Arctic Norway and works as an expedition leader for Across the Divide Expeditions.

Ever since he was left alone in the bath as a small child Rob has had a fondness for the ocean and an ever-so-little tendency for separation anxiety.  He has taken part in over 10 marine based expeditions since 2000 in Madagascar and the Indian Ocean, the Caribbean, South East Asia and the chilly waters of New Zealand and has done so as a research diver, medic and leader that have culminated in awards from Buckingham Palace. He may also be found gliding along the Greenland Ice cap or in Norway and Iceland touring with kites. The most important thing to him, though, is the fact that he can help in his own way to make a substantial difference to protecting the environment as well as the way that humans influence it.

Rob is currently an emergency doctor working in Brighton and Chairman of the Trustees of Blue Ventures Conservation. He has been involved and was an intern for Divers Alert Network, the largest diving medical and safety group in the world. He has an interest in expeditions and has a couple up his sleeve.

In his spare time he can be found kite surfing off the south coast, running along the South Downs Way or (rarely) with his head in his medical books trying to absorb the large amount of information so that he can be a good doctor, and working as an Expedition Medic for Across the Divide.

Sean is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and was the first person in the UK to become a Fellow of the Academy of Wilderness Medicine. He has been involved in a wide variety of expeditions over the last 20 years. During this time he has trekked across the Darien Gap and the Thar Desert; worked as a trekking guide and Chief Medic for Raleigh International in Namibia and Zimbabwe; a trauma medic in Columbia; a ski field doctor in New Zealand and spent a season in the Antarctica for ALE.

In 2004 he became a medical consultant to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and works throughout the Middle East. Since 1998 he has worked for Across the Divide Expeditions as medic and expedition medicine advisor, providing medical cover on expeditions in 21 different countries. In 2002, he co-founded Expedition and Wilderness Medicine, which seeks to provide comprehensive training for medical professionals working as expedition medical officers in a variety extreme and remote environments.

Simon was born in Tavistock, Devon, but he didn’t hang around for long. At the age of 3 he was off to the rather warmer climes of Fiji, where he spent many happy years. After flitting back and forth between England and New Zealand, he is now based in Christchurch, New Zealand, where he is training in Infectious Diseases and Respiratory Medicine. Simon is also the Medical Director for Expedition Medicine's Polar Medicine training course held near Wanaka on New Zealand's South Island.

He has been involved with Expedition Medicine for 6 years and supported groups in such varied locations as Costa Rica, Lesotho, Vietnam and Nepal as well as to the summit of Kilimanjaro. He is a Fellow of the Wilderness Medical Society’s Academy of Wilderness Medicine (FAWM) and is also an instructor in advanced wilderness life support.

Steve is the Field Operations Manager in charge of the international base Patriot Hills in Antarctica operated by Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions. As a polar guide he has led groups to both North and South Geographic Poles and on expeditions to Alaska, Arctic Canada, Greenland and Spitsbergen. He has helped several polar adventurers including Pen Hadow, Hannah McKeand and Rosie Stancer to organise their solo polar expeditions and acts as a consultant to extreme adventures all over the world. He works as a consultant in safety management and crisis management based on his personal experiences of treating casualties, a terrorist bombing in London and coordinating a three day rescue of five stranded climbers on the Vinson Massif in Antarctica in 2006.

He has wide ranging expedition experience and has planned and managed over eighty conservation, community and adventure projects for Raleigh International with project partners ranging from CARE International, Save The Children, to National Park Authorities and the Natural History Museums in London and Santiago. As a climber, he enjoys remote expeditionary mountaineering and has climbed in Antarctica, the Russian Caucasus in winter, reached the summit of Denali three times, made twelve first ascents in Greenland; has climbed on Mount Logan, and on three expeditions to the Karakoram.

As a young man, Sundeep followed Hannibal's route across the Pyrenees and Alps riding a bicycle. He was selected to read medicine at Oxford, where his interest in exploration grew, and he became Chairman of the Oxford University Exploration Club.

Sundeep holds degrees in Physiology and Medicine from Oxford and is a General Practitioner with an interest in expedition and wilderness medicine. He is currently undertaking 6 months training as an anaesthetist with an aspiration to join the London Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS).

In 2000 Sundeep was awarded the British Association of Immediate Care Schemes Medal by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh for Pre-Hospital Care.He is a member of the Royal Geographical Society Medical Cell and has served as the youngest Member of Council of the Society.

Having a passion for climbing, Sundeep summited Everest in 1998, becoming the youngest person in the world to climb the Seven Summits. He has since gone on to climb Cho Oyu (2006) and Everest again (2007) as part of the Caudwell Xtreme Everest Medical Research Expedition where he was the climbing leader. Sundeep has had first-hand experience of extreme environments, from the mountains of Antarctica to the Sahara desert, were he completed the 140-mile Marathon des Sables desert ultra-marathon (2000).

In 2002, Sundeep was the Medical Officer for the scientific diving expedition to Pitcairn Island, in the South Pacific for which he was awarded the British Sub Aqua Club Jubilee Trust award. An accomplished climber, Sundeep has a book dedicated to him, called ‘Cloud Sailors’ written by Dr Hugh Montgomery.   Sundeep has been an explorer or medical expert in virtually every wilderness terrain in more than 40 countries, from deserts to mountain tops and from the ocean depths to aerospace. He lives on the edge. However, his enduring strength is not recklessness but educated perseverance.