Nigel

Nigel Speight was a paediatrician in Durham for 25 years, and has always been a pioneer of new ideas. He is a brilliant teacher, who evokes great enthusiasm.

Nigel is passionate about life and medicine in Africa. As a young doctor, he worked in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, for several years. They had just opened the country’s first ever medical school, and as a medical lecturer he witnessed the first doctors to ever graduate from Tanzania.

While there, he conducted pioneering research on treating a fatal condition called Bantu Haemosiderosis. He also fought for cost-effective prescribing.

His pioneering work in the UK has included him researching into the under-diagnosis and under-treatment of childhood asthma. From this, he went on to promote the simple idea of children squirting their inhaler devices through a hole cut in the bottom of a disposable coffee cup! Now, you see ‘spacers’ being used regularly.

Nigel is also an expert on ADHD and ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis), also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). These are both controversial conditions, and the children and their families frequently need to be advocated for. Nigel does this by lecturing about these internationally, and as the medical adviser to several ME charities.

Nigel continued to teach junior paediatricians in both Tanzania and the Sudan while working in Durham, and since retiring, he has spent periods of time working and teaching in a small hospital in Katete, Zambia. While he was there he introduced using apnoea (breathing) alarms on the new-born baby unit, and taught how to use special cooling methods which help babies’ brains recover if they have suffered traumatic births.