Eric Walker

Dr Eric Walker MBChB, DSc (Hon Madras), FRCP and FFTM (Glas), FRCGP.

I am qualified both as a General Practitioner and an Infectious Disease Physician and worked full-time as Consultant in Infectious Diseases and Travel Medicine at Health Protection Scotland (http://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/) and Gartnavel Hospital, Glasgow until 2007. During that time I was involved in establishing TRAVAX and the Glasgow TM courses.

Recently I retired from hospital work and returned to part-time General Practice in a village near my home near Aberfoyle in Stirlingshire which gave me time to help establish the new Faculty of Travel Medicine at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow (http://www.rcpsg.ac.uk/).

Previously I have spent time in Africa and particularly in India as a lecturer in medicine with Madras University and at Vellore Christian Medical College Hospital (http://www.cmch-vellore.edu/). After returning from India I was principal UK coordinator of British Council sponsored projects on Hepatitis and HIV/AIDS until 2007.

I have a long-standing interest in environmental issues and human travel affects the environment and visa-versa. I am also co-director of ‘Good Green Fun’ (http://www.goodgreenfun.co.uk/) a non-profit organisation which collects and ‘reuses/recycles’ children’s items such as baby equipment, clothes, toys etc, selling them on at low prices to support low income families and children’s charities. I play the viola with the Stirling Orchestra (http://sites.google.com/site/stirlingorchestrascotland/) and keep bees.

Now my term as Dean of the Faculty of Travel Medicine has been completed I am delighted to have been elected again onto the BTHA Executive Committee and will have a special role on maintaining and developing our links with other Travel Medicine Organisations including those from the Nordic Countries with whom BTHA helps to run alternate yearly conferences (see http://www.nectm.com/).