Ian at an appointment to give plasma “during a not so bad phase” of Long Covid.
Dr Ian M Frayling (Matriculated 1977, Trinity Hall)
MA MB BChir PhD FRCPath Hon.FFPath(RCPI) FEBLM
Ian qualified in Clinical Medicine at Cambridge in 1982 and during his career has served as the only Genetic Pathologist in NHS service in the UK. Though semi-retired after taking early release from NHS Wales a couple of years ago, he currently holds a number of honorary appointments including President of the Association of Clinical Pathologists, Honorary Consulting Genetic Pathologist to St Mark’s Hospital, Harrow and St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin, and Honorary Senior Clinical Research Fellow in the Inherited Tumour Syndromes Research Group at Cardiff University. He is also a member of Council of the UK Cancer Genetics Group and the International Society for Gastrointestinal Hereditary Tumours (InSiGHT).
He established gene and tumour testing for hereditary bowel and related cancers in 1993, first while a Clinical Fellow at St Mark’s Hospital, London and then a Specialist Registrar at Addenbrooke’s. He has since concentrated on gene variant interpretation, genotype-phenotype correlations, clinical guidance and systematic testing of incident cancers to identify hereditary cases. He is active internationally, as an author for the WHO Classification of Tumours series on hereditary cancers and now as a member of the International Liaison of Pathology Presidents (ILPP), and has received medals and honours for his “seminal contribution to the science of pathology.”
More recently, Ian has become a campaigner with Long Covid Wales, a group aiming to ensure proper care for those suffering from Long Covid, which he considers to be a separate disease from COVID-19. Having lived with bouts of the illness himself since early March 2020, he now advocates, as per NICE guidance, for medical consultant-led specialist clinics that will provide diagnosis and care for those with serious, actionable Long Covid pathology.
Ian at Yosemite National Park before the pandemic.
“My consultant ordered me to take a rest as, after 15 months of Long Covid, she recently diagnosed me with cerebral venous thrombosis, so I’m now on warfarin,” Ian said in a message from his seaside holiday. “She can’t explain how come I am still alive. I think it is my taking low dose aspirin that saved me.”
Find out more about Ian and his advocacy work here:
