Update in medicine – Exeter 2026

Resident doctors - join our networking session

Southwest representatives from the RCP’s Resident Doctor Committee will be hosting a special resident doctor networking session for registered attendees from 8 - 9am on the day of this conference. Come along to this informal meeting to hear about the work of the committee and to share your thoughts about training, or any regional issues. 

There is no need to register for this in advance, simply book your place for this conference and tick the relevant survey question to express your interest.

Dr Drew Davies

Dr Katrina Curtis FRCP

Dr Katrina Curtis is a respiratory physician working at Bristol Royal Infirmary where she is the lead for the Respiratory High Care Unit. She graduated from Cambridge University and undertook specialty training in the South West, taking time out for a PhD at the Royal Brompton Hospital London. Katrina was clinical lead for the division of medicine for the COVID response, including establishing and leading a high care unit for COVID pneumonitis. Her interests include respiratory failure, ARDS and respiratory complications of neuromuscular disease.  

Dr Benjamin Garfield

Dr Benjamin Garfield is a consultant in critical care and respiratory medicine at Royal Brompton Hospital, part of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, and an honorary senior clinical lecturer at Imperial College London. His clinical practice focuses on severe cardiorespiratory failure, with particular expertise in severe acute respiratory failure (SARF) and advanced therapies including extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Ben has extensive experience in cardiothoracic intensive care, managing complex patients including those requiring mechanical circulatory and respiratory support, transplantation and care for pulmonary hypertension. His research spans translational and clinical studies in respiratory and critical care medicine including ECMO outcomes, pulmonary vascular disease and long-term recovery after critical illness. Ben has published widely and presents nationally and internationally, with a particular interest in improving outcomes. He also leads the UK National ECMO Follow-up Group.

Dr Lewis Jones

Dr Lewis Jones trained in emergency medicine in south-west England and has been an Emergency Department consultant in Exeter since 2006. He was clinical lead for the Emergency Department between 2016–19 and later the clinical director for emergency care in the Royal Devon University Hospitals Trust, Exeter from 2020–22. Alongside this, Lewis has worked with elite rugby teams since 2005. He was a team doctor for the Exeter Chiefs for 17 seasons. He has since worked for the England men’s under 18s rugby team and latterly joined the Red Roses England women’s rugby team. This summer, he supported them when they won the world cup in front of 81,000 fans at Allianz Stadium Twickenham.

Dr Sarah Wheeldon

Dr Sarah Wheeldon is a consultant in haematology and transfusion medicine, working in a joint post between Royal Devon University NHS Foundation Trust and NHS Blood and Transplant. She completed her haematology SpR training in the Peninsula deanery in 2025 and in 2023/2024 held a 1-year post with NHS Blood and Transplant as a transfusion education fellow, responsible for populating the RCPath pathology portal. Prior to specialty training, Sarah did her core medical training in Exeter and worked for 1 year, in 2018/2019, as a clinical fellow in the Intensive Care Unit. Her particular interests are in transfusion medicine, general and liaison haematology, and medical education.

Dr Lynsey Webb FRCP

Dr Lynsey Webb qualified as a doctor in 2002 from King’s College London and spent her house officer years between Guy’s and St Thomas’, Bromley and Lewisham hospitals. On a bit of a whim, Lynsey applied for a job at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital in 2006 and, from the moment she walked in, she knew she had found her forever home. Lynsey gained a place on the south-west nephrology and general medicine specialist training rotation and spent 2007–14 between Exeter and Bristol, including several years undertaking research at the UK renal registry. In 2014, she became a consultant at RDUH working across the nephrology and acute medicine teams. The next few years saw several leadership positions – medical staffing lead, acute medicine clinical lead, clinical director for urgent care and finally deputy medical director for the Community Care Group since September 2023. Lynsey loves general medicine and looking at the ‘whole patient’ – the excitement of meeting patients and solving a problem remains the best part of her work.

Professor Ashwin Dhanda FRCP

Professor Ashwin Dhanda is a clinical academic hepatologist with an interest in alcohol-related liver disease. He trained in gastroenterology and hepatology in south-west England, including completing a PhD at the University of Bristol investigating immune biomarkers to predict survival of people with alcohol-related hepatitis. Ashwin has been a consultant hepatologist at the South West Liver Unit in Plymouth since 2019. He is lead for alcohol is his trust and has established a research group at the University of Plymouth working on alcohol-related liver disease. His projects range from qualitative research understanding patient experience and developing methods to tackle stigma to clinical trials of treatments for liver disease and alcohol use disorder.

Dr Ray Sheridan

Dr Ray Sheridan graduated from Bristol University then trained across south-west England and New Zealand before taking up a consultant physician post in Exeter 20 years ago. He runs a general medical ward with seven infection control side rooms where they typically isolate returning travellers and other infectious disease patients. The COVID Medicines Delivery Unit is managed out of this ward. Ray supported the regulation and quality improvement Northern Ireland C. difficile review in 2009. As principal investigator he supported infection research in C. difficile vaccines and treatments and ran the faecal microbiota transplant service. Ray was a co-author of a recently published review of management of severe C. difficile in the Journal of Medical Microbiology. He is the principal investigator for a range of vaccines and treatment studies in respiratory syncytial virus, flu, norovirus and COVID. Ray’s other role is director of medical education for Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.

Dr Sonali Dharia

Dr Sonali Dharia is a consultant neurologist at the Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust with a specialist interest in Parkinson’s disease and movement disorders. She completed her primary medical qualification in India and undertook neurology specialty training in south-west England before being appointed as a consultant in 2016. Following training, she was awarded a clinical research fellowship in Bristol, where she worked on the landmark GDNF (glial cell-line derived neurotrophic factor) clinical trial investigating disease-modifying treatments for Parkinson’s disease. Sonali is currently training programme director for neurology within the south-west Peninsula deanery and oversees Parkinson’s services at North Devon District Hospital, as well as being involved in various research trials for patients with Parkinson’s disease.

Dr Mrinal Saha FRCP

Dr Mrinal Saha is a consultant cardiologist at Gloucestershire Royal Hospitals, appointed in 2010. He is an interventional cardiologist and participates in the 24/7 primary percutaneous coronary intervention service (‘heart attack rota’) in Gloucestershire. He started his medical training in Cambridge University and most of his cardiology training occurred in London Hospitals (Barts, London Chest and St Thomas’s). Mrinal’s PhD was funded by the British Heart Foundation and examined the relationship between endothelial progenitor cells and the warm-up angina phenomenon.