Dr Michael Moneypenny, Director of the Scottish Centre for Simulation and Clinical Human Factors (SCSCHF) and Consultant Anaesthetist, NHS Forth Valley
Tell us about your current role
I spend half my time as a consultant anaesthetist here in Forth Valley and the other half as the director of the Scottish Centre for Simulation and Clinical Human Factors (SCSCHF). As an anaesthetist I carry out a mix of duties, from epidurals on the labour ward to general anaesthesia in the emergency theatre. As director of the SCSCHF I have been involved in maintaining the international stature of the centre as well as increasing its local visibility. (You may have seen some of our team wheeling mannequins around the hospital to deliver staff training in the workplace!)
How did you arrive in your present job
I was a junior house officer at Stirling Royal Infirmary many moons ago, carried out the rest of my training in Merseyside and then was lucky enough to be appointed to a consultant post back in Forth Valley. I started on the day the acute services moved over in 2011 and was then appointed to the directorship of the centre the year after.
What has been your most rewarding moment in terms of your career
Being appointed director of the SCSCHF, which is an exciting and engaging job.
Strictly Come Dancing or Panorama
If forced to watch one, I’d go for Panorama. I’m more interested in a good book (and we don’t have a TV in the house)
Best meal ever
The meal with my now partner Catherine on our first date 5 years ago. I was expecting lunch but she, less sure about me, was only committing to a cup of tea and a cake.
How do you spend a Sunday
I’ve got three little girls from 6 months to 6 (“and three-quarters” she would want me to add) years old. Sundays start early and we usually end up pottering in the garden, going for lunch in Glasgow and visiting one of the National Trust for Scotland places. One weekend in six I am resident nights in the hospital and those Sundays are spent in bed.
Outstanding schooldays memory
My older brother being asked to kick down the door to the teachers’ staff room as they’d locked themselves in. He was a bit of a wild child and was torn between leaving the teachers locked in and the joy of authorised destruction. He smashed the door in.
What’s your worst nightmare
It’s a tie between privatisation of the NHS in Scotland along the lines of what is happening south of the border, and growing old lonely.
Burning ambition
To leave the world a better place than I found it.
