Personal Profile
Professor Mike Thomson MBChB DCH FRCP FRCPCH MD was trained firstly in Paediatrics then in the sub-speciality of Paediatric Gastroenterology and also focused widely on Paediatric Hepatology and Paediatric Nutrition. He was a Consultant at the Centre for Paediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition at the Royal Free Hospital for nearly 10 years before moving in 2004 to the Centre for Paediatric Gastroenterology at Sheffield Children’s Hospital.
Professor Thomson trained in medicine in Aberdeen between 1980 and 1985 and then moved to Yorkshire to do his first four or five years of medicine and Paediatrics which was coming home as this was where he was brought up. Paediatric Gastroenterology training started in 1988 in Leeds, and then he moved to Brisbane to the Centre of Paediatric Gastroenterology there and this is where he did his research for his Medical Doctorate in Nutrition and Energy expenditure in Cystic Fibrosis. Professor Thomson also trained in endoscopy and all other facets of Paediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition with a lot of exposure and responsibility for the Paediatric Liver Transplant Programme which is one of the finest in the world.
Professor Thomson then returned to the UK in 1994 and spent about 2 years at the Birmingham Children’s Liver Transplant Unit and then in November 1995 took up the post at the Royal Free Paediatric Gastroenterology Unit set up by Professor John Walker-Smith, one of the fathers of Paediatric Gastroenterology. Professor Thomson had two excellent colleagues there.
Professor Thomson subsequently continues private practice in Sheffield and London and has been the lead for the National Centre of Paediatric Endoscopy Training which also trains fellows from all over the world. He has built up the only comprehensive small bowel investigation service for children in the UK involving wireless capsule endoscopy and enteroscopy and has expertise in all areas of paediatric gastroenterology.
He is a keen trainer and is also a very widely published researcher with over over 150 original research papers, over 70 reviews and Guidelines, over 60 Chapters in major textbooks, author of the major paediatric textbooks for undergraduate and postgraduate study, Editor and major contributor of the main paediatric endoscopy textbook, now in its third Edition, used as standard all over the world, and Editor of the main Textbook on the Oesophagus and Stomach in Childhood. Chair of the European Paediatric Endoscopy Committee.
He has pioneered the use of minimally invasive endoscopy for diagnosis and also for treatment of conditions such as gastro-oesophageal reflux disease in children, and he lectures internationally and nationally many times each year. He is the medical advisor for the parent-led group Living with Reflux and has strong connections with parent led groups for inflammatory bowel disease and eosinophilic diseases of the gut in children.
Professor Thomson lectures and trains all over the world, and runs the International Academy for Paediatric Endoscopy Training in Sheffield. He leads on training in this area for Europe.
Professor Thomson now work in Sheffield’s Children’s Hospital in the Paediatric Gastroenterology Centre and travel down to London one or two days a week. Professor Thomson also sees private patients at Thornbury Hospital in Sheffield. You can find out more on his website: www.paediatricgastroenterologist.co.uk
Professor Thomson’s other interests outside Medicine include spending time with the family, fell running and racing in the Peak and Lake Districts, and he has worked in a Children’s Hospital in Zambia for which he has organised charity events to raise funds. www.action4zambiakids.org.uk
