A NEWCASTLE Hospitals consultant who has dedicated his time and expertise to helping others overseas has been awarded an MBE for his work.
Consultant Gastroenterologist, Dr David Nylander, received the award for services to health in Sierra Leone and the UK, as part of the Queen’s overseas and international birthday honours list.
Over a number of years, David has been sharing his expertise in gastroenterology overseas, travelling to the West African Coast to deliver training in endoscopy in partnership with The Choithram Memorial Hospital (CMH).
Originally from Sierra Leone, he recognised a problem with the current gastroenterology service being delivered to patients so set out to train and provide doctors with the necessary skills to perform gastroscopy safely and to diagnose upper GI disorders.
A partnership was quickly established with the CMH and David proceeded to create a training program for postgraduate doctors to develop a sustainable and reliable endoscopy service.
In November 2016 – after a successful application for a grant from the British Society of Gastroenterology and further charitable fundraising efforts – David led a group of four consultant gastroenterologists, including Dr Chris Mountford, to Freetown to provide the training programme – based on the national UK accredited basis skills course delivered at Newcastle Hospitals.
Since training the first fully certified endoscopists in 2018, the team have continued to remotely monitoring their performance as the cohort pass on their knowledge and skills to future clinicians.
Now, the consultant is working to establish similar system in Gambia and is also connecting with local areas to provide a more accessible service to communities outside of Freetown.
David’s achievement is coupled alongside his commitment to the NHS and his leadership of services here in the North East, as Director of North of Tyne bowel cancer screening centre – one of the only centres in the UK to continue meet bowel screenings targets throughout the pandemic. During his career, he has also developed and led on services such as balloon assisted enteroscopy as a regional referral centre, and radiofrequency ablation to treat pre-cancerous lesions in the oesophagus.
Admitting he was ‘shocked’ to receive an MBE, David explained the recognition has spurred him on to do more for others.
“All I have aimed to do is my job and also to enthuse and develop others in order to improve services and outcomes for our patients, taking advantage of any new technologies I can access,” he said.
“Therefore, it was a complete shock to receive the email about the award! I feel indebted to the amazing people I work with and the trust who have supported everything I have developed. This gives me a big spur to try and do even more”.
