Meet the #1Change Team
The British Society of Lifestyle Medicine has launched a campaign – #1change – to help raise awareness in society that all of us can make a difference to our health and environment through making conscious lifestyle choices, one small step at a time.
Meet the key members of our team here…
Dr Rob Lawson BSc MBChB MRCGP FRCGP Dip BSLM/IBLM
BSLM Trustee and Chairman
Having qualified in the 1970s, Rob has gained extensive experience as a GP in Scotland. His principal interest is primary and secondary prevention of disease and the specialty of Lifestyle Medicine. As well as leading his NHS team to the highest awards for quality (2003-2013) he also founded a charity in 1991 providing rehabilitation in venues around East Lothian for sufferers of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, stroke, lung disease and frailty. He has retired from NHS practice to concentrate on the applications of Lifestyle Medicine to healthcare.
– Fellow and Examiner for the Royal College of General Practitioners.
– International Editor of American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine
– Secretary UK Shared Medical Appointment Contact Group
– Founder Trustee of ELCRG (SC021161) and part-time clinician for Core Health
– Board member of the International Board of Lifestyle Medicine
Gavin Routledge DO(Hons) MSc
Chief Health Officer of the digital health company Active X Health
Gavin Routledge is Vice Patron of the British School of Osteopathy (the UK’s oldest and biggest osteopathic school, established in 1917), author of “The Back Book” and “active X backs – An effective long-term solution to lower back pain”. He was a Gold Medallist at the British School of Osteopathy in 1991, has a Masters Degree from the University of Edinburgh in The Clinical Management of Pain and has worked in Edinburgh, Scotland for most of his 26 years in practice, always specialising in – and now revolutionising – the management and treatment of lower back pain and sciatica.
“We need to be helping people to make the changes in their lives that they want to make. Change is hard, but with the #1change campaign I believe that we have a tremendous potential to support lasting improvements in health.
My first #1change was to reduce email to a once-a-day habit (from way too many times a day). The #1change I am currently focusing on is eliminating processed/refined carbs.”
Dr John Sykes MBBS BSc. MRCGP
Trustee & Director, New Graduates
John is a GP with a keen passion for lifestyle medicine. He completed his medical training at the University of East Anglia, having previously completed a Cell Biology BSc. (Hons) at Durham University. John has always been a keen sportsman which set him up to be interested in sport and exercise medicine. This fuelled a passion for exercise medicine which incorporates using exercise as a method to cure, treat and prevent many non-communicable diseases. He became a director of a group called Move Eat Treat, worked for Public Health Wiltshire and has organised several conferences around physical activity and lifestyle medicine for doctors and medical students including the inaugural RCGP Lifestyle Medicine Conference 2017.
John is a keen sports man having represented both his Universities at 1st team football and completed a sub 3-hour Marathon in Berlin. He still plays football every Saturday and enjoys running with the occasional charity run as well as various aspects of strength and conditioning training.
Dr Punam Krishan MBCHB MRCGP DFSRH
MRCGP Trustee & Regional Director Glasgow
Punam is an NHS GP, who has worked with patients from varying social and ethnic backgrounds in both London and Glasgow. This has given her a modern understanding of the complex health and lifestyle issues facing our cross-cultural communities today. Through her years of experience as a family doctor, she has developed a strong passion for all aspects of lifestyle medicine. This was intensified through personal illness, allowing her to learn, first hand, the power of applying lifestyle strategies to transforming her own health outcomes. Punam has specialist interests and expertise in mental health, women’s health, paediatrics and medical education. She is also a qualified health coach, medical writer and motivational speaker.
Modern day medicine has gradually become more reactive rather than preventative to disease. With awareness of the limitations in time, resources and services within the NHS, Punam creates unique lifestyle strategies for her patients and for the wider Glasgow community by co-running voluntary lifestyle medicine meet-up groups/workshops/events. The ethos of her groups is based on WHO’s definition that health is “a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
Punam believes that, “It does not happen overnight but the key to transforming health outcomes is to inspire and empower your patient to make