My specialist field is Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery.   I was a Senior Lecturer in Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery at the University of Sheffield and Honorary Consultant Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon at the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust for over 22 years until I resigned at the end of March 2017.  I continue to work in both private hospital-based oral and maxillofacial surgery and in private oral surgery specialist practice, in addition to medico-legal practice.

I trained in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in Sheffield gaining my Certificate of Accreditation in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery from the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1993.  A prestigious Welcome Trust Research Fellowship then allowed me to undertake a year of full-time time research and complete my studies into methods of lingual nerve repair and the award of a Ph.D.  I was appointed as a Senior Lecturer and Consultant in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in 1995.

I undertake a broad range of work within the field of Oral Surgery and Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery including the diagnosis and treatment of lesions of the head and neck, and the oral surgery including the surgical removal of impacted wisdom teeth.

I am a leading expert in the management of lingual and inferior alveolar nerve injuries, which are usually sustained during the removal of impacted wisdom teeth.  Lingual nerve injury can be very debilitating resulting not only in numbness but also painful dysesthesia in the tongue.  I ran a dedicated nerve injury clinic in Sheffield for over 25 years for the management of patients with lingual and inferior alveolar nerve injuries, patients being referred to my clinic from all over the UK and Ireland and assessment for treatment in Sheffield. I held regular clinics dedicated to patients with lingual and inferior alveolar nerve where patients to which patients were referred from all regions of the UK and Ireland for treatment, including microsurgical nerve repair.   I am regularly invited to give lectures on the management of nerve injuries at national and international conferences in the UK and abroad including Germany and the USA.

Before I resigned from the University of Sheffield at the end of March 2017, I carried out the surgery for the majority of the patients undergoing orthognathic/facial deformity surgery in Sheffield, carrying out more than 25 bimaxillary (upper and lower jaw) osteotomies each year, working very closely with all the Consultant orthodontists in Sheffield, having joint clinics twice monthly.

I was the Clinical Lead for Oral and Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at Sheffield Children’s Hospital (2010 -2017) where I had regular operating lists. I also held regular joint clinics with the Consultants in the Department of Paediatric Dentistry where we examined pediatric patients with complex oral and maxillofacial surgery problems.

I was the Founding Editor-in-Chief and then Editor-in-Chief of ‘Oral Surgery’ published by Wily Blackwell for five years; July 2007–December 2012.  I was elected President of the British Association of Oral Surgeons in 2012 and 2013.