Malcolm

Malcolm Coulthard is a retired children’s kidney doctor from Newcastle. As a medical student, he went to Tanzania and met Nigel Speight, and he has continued to have a keen interest in medicine in the developing world ever since.

Malcolm started the first Children’s Kidney Unit for the Northeast of England to dialyse and transplant children. Also, he has always been interested in common conditions such as urinary tract infections (UTIs), and has emphasised providing care to the whole family.

Malcolm’s background is in science – he got a 1st Class Honours degree in Physiology as a medical student, and later did a PhD, looking at how premature babies’ kidneys work. He has done lots of research, some very ‘First World’, such as developing a dialysis machine for babies (the Nidus), and some of widespread applicability, such as his work on childhood UTIs.

Since retiring, Malcolm has joined Unni in teaching paediatricians in Uganda. During one trip, he learnt from the Ugandan doctors how the World Health Organisation (WHO) advise treating children with Kwashiorkor (a form of severe malnutrition) if they develop diarrhoea and shock, and that half of them die. This led to him to research this area, and to devise an alternative treatment strategy. This has led to our currently active Kwashiorkor project, to test this method.