Inaugural Lecture: Professor Dimitrios Siassakos

Dimitrios is Professor and Honorary Consultant in Obstetrics at University College London and University College Hospital. He was awarded his professorial chair in 2020-2021.
 
His clinical work is devoted to managing labour ward, and to looking after women with previous adverse pregnancy outcome, to optimize their chance of a healthy subsequent pregnancy.
 
He is Chair of the Bereavement Care Group of the International Stillbirth Alliance, member of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) HTA prioritisation panel, the NIHR Maternal and Neonatal health Policy Research Unit, and the global Respectful care Council. He chairs several panels and committees. Dimitrios is lead author of several national and international guidelines, and Executive Editor for BJOG.  He has led the development and dissemination of regional, national, and global training courses to improve management of obstetric emergencies (PROMPT, SMASH), operative birth (ROBUST, ART&CRAFT), and bereavement care (SUPPORT).
 
Dimitrios leads a comprehensive portfolio of research in stillbirth care and prevention including initiatives relevant to diabetes and glucose dysmetabolism, prevention of perinatal brain injury, patient involvement in serious incident reviews, intrapartum care and operative birth, safety of maternity services, and technology-enhanced care. 
 
He has held grants in excess of £23m, including the £2m NIHR ROTATE trial of operative birth as CI, and has more than 100 publications including the Lancet Stillbirth Series. As Deputy Medical Director for the Wellcome/EPSRC centre for Intervention and Surgical Sciences (WEISS), Dimitrios is working closely with healthcare engineers to design novel tools that aim to improve the safety of birth.