John Whittle MBBS, MD, FHEA, FRCA, FFICM

John Whittle, MB BS, MD (Res), FRCA, FFICM, is an anesthesiology, perioperative medicine and critical care physician-scientist within Duke Anesthesiology at Duke University Medical Center and a member of the department’s General, Vascular and Transplant Anesthesia Division where he practices in perioperative medicine and clinical anesthesiology. He has a specific interest in the high-risk patient presenting for non-cardiac surgery and provides anesthesia services as part of the liver transplant team. Whittle also serves the department’s Critical Care Medicine Division where he practices as an intensivist in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit at Duke University Hospital. Additionally, he is a fellow of the Royal College of Anaesthetists and the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine in the United Kingdom.

Whittle is originally from the United Kingdom. As an undergraduate, he attended King’s College London where he earned a degree in aerospace physiology. He first participated in research where he studied the feasibility of using oxygen generated from a molecular sieve oxygen generator to supply passenger drop down masks on civilian and military aircraft. His subsequent work included aiding with the design and testing of an arterialized earlobe blood collector for use in microgravity, which he was able to test at the European Space Agency in a parabolic flight campaign. As a clinical medical student at King’s, Whittle was awarded a scholarship for excellence in basic sciences as well as a university prize for exam performance and the International Journal of Surgery’s Howard Ellis prize for best research paper of the year. He embarked on post graduate training in anesthesia and intensive care medicine in the Central London School of Anaesthesia, based around University College London (UCL) during which he earned fellowship of the Royal College of Anaesthetists and of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine. During his training, he was awarded a two-year National Institute for Health Research Academic Clinical Fellowship, which he carried out at UCL. This fellowship, alongside his clinical training, sparked an abiding and strong interest in the use of translational research methodology to understand and ultimately improve the outcomes of high-risk patients undergoing major surgery.