The Robin Mitchell Medic One Fellowship
The Medic One Charity funds the Robin Mitchell Fellowship every two years. The Fellowship was set up in 2010 after one of our esteemed ED Consultant colleagues passed away. You can read more about Robin and the Fellowship here as well as Fellowships that have been awarded.
Dr Robin Gordon Mitchell MBChB, MRCP, FFAEM, FACEM, emergency medicine specialist and Director of Training at Auckland City Hospital, died peacefully in Mercy Hospice, Auckland, New Zealand on 7th July 2010 from pancreatic cancer. He leaves a wife Jo and daughter Abigail.
Robin was born in Lanark, Scotland on 9th September 1964. He was educated at Hardy School in Dorchester and represented the school in many sports including cricket and swimming. He returned to Scotland as an undergraduate at Edinburgh University where he excelled academically. He was also selected for the Scotland U21 rugby squad.
Robin completed his MRCP before training in emergency medicine in Edinburgh. He was appointed to his first consultant post in Christchurch Hospital, gaining his FACEM in November 1999, and meeting Jo, his wife. He spent a short time in Western Australia, before returning to Edinburgh as a consultant in January 2002. Shortly after returning to Edinburgh, Robin and Jo had a daughter, Abigail. Robin rapidly cemented his growing
reputation as an outstanding clinician and an inspirational educator. He developed the first high fidelity simulator-based course in Scotland dealing with medical emergencies. Robin became Training Programme Director and Regional Specialty Advisor for the South-East Scotland Emergency Medicine training scheme and led the regional implementation of the European Working Time Directive and acute care common stem training. Robin and family, as was always his stated aim, returned to New Zealand in 2007 and took up a post in the Emergency Department at Auckland City Hospital. Robin’s parting reference from Edinburgh indicated he was “the best emergency physician they had ever seen”.
Robin worked in Auckland for three short years before his terminal illness, but in that time had more than a career’s worth of influence. With his interest in prehospital care, he quickly developed a strong relationship with Auckland Rescue Helicopter, providing training and clinical support to the paramedics and constructing the educational framework for a retrieval programme. He was quickly appointed as Director of Emergency Medicine Training and immediately became a role model to the region’s trainees and inspired a collegiate approach to training across Auckland.
Dr Gregor Campbell-Hewson, Dr Keith Little, Claire Banks, Abbie Mitchell (Robin’s Daughter), Dr Dave Caesar, Jo Mitchell (Robin’s Wife), Margaret-Rose Singh.
Robin loved life and threw himself into everything he did, including his legendary unique loose-limbed dancing style. Naturally inclusive, he resolved interpersonal or interdepartmental conflicts with intelligence, clarity, and tact. He employed the same cool head in the resuscitation room, leading with a calmness borne out of being three steps ahead of everyone else in the room and a complete quiet confidence based on a set of very slick practical skills and encyclopaedic knowledge. He could deliver on the spot “state-of-the-art” tutorials on almost any subject (including the nature of chemical bonds, the lyrics to 1980s disco hits, and pasta making in addition to the entire spectrum of emergency medicine practice) without warning, under pressure and with infectious enthusiasm. He was an astonishingly good diagnostician based on experience and an encyclopaedic knowledge of basic principles.
He had a saying engraved on his iPod, which reads, “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference”. This saying meant a lot to Robin as he coped with his illness, but it typified the man himself, in that he consistently and unfailingly showed the way a positive attitude could change a shift, change a department, change a patient’s life. He was an extraordinary man, and the specialty has lost one of its true heroes.
This fellowship will be awarded to the Scottish Trainee who can most closely grasp and deliver the values that Robin held so dear and embodied in his daily practice.
2026 Robin Mitchell Fellowship
This fellowship will be awarded to the Scottish Trainee who can most closely grasp and deliver the values that Robin held so dear and embodied in his daily practice.
Eligibility: Emergency Medicine Trainees working in Scotland.
Award: Up to £5000 awarded biennially to cover travel, accommodation and living expenses.
Purpose: To pursue 4-6 week placement in an Emergency Medicine setting or associated clinical specialty away from applicant’s base hospital, with the focussed purpose of advancing their clinical experience and expertise.
All applications will be assessed for suitability by the Robin Mitchell Fellowship Committee, and shortlisted candidates will be invited for competitive interview.
The successful applicant will then be expected to return a summary of their experience to the Robin Mitchell Fellowship Committee and deliver the Robin Mitchell Fellowship presentation at the Scottish Board of the College of Emergency Medicine Annual Scientific Meeting.
Application
A written proposal outlining:
Projected destination
Clinical activity
Named clinical supervisor(s)
Plan of professional development
Specific experiential targets
should be sent, with an updated CV, to Dr David Caesar, Consultant in Emergency Medicine, Emergency Department, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, using the application form below:
Previous Projects
2012: Dr Becks Cranfield, Shock trauma unit, Baltimore, USA
2014: Dr Stephanie Mackie, Pre-hospital services in Iceland
Dr Zoe Smeed, comparing EM and pre-hospital services in Norway
2016: Dr Gillian Pickering, Paediatric ultrasound and PEM in Canada
2018: Dr Carlyn Davie, Physician wellbeing in Baltimore
Dr Toby Edmunds, Paediatric EM and ICU at Starship Hospital, New Zealand (Bursary)
2020: Dr Ross Archibald, Pre-hospital care in Iceland
2022: Dr Jane Grassie, Use of EmPath units in Minnesota, USA (Fellowship)
Dr Anna Wallace, Arusha Medivac in rural Tanzania (Bursary)
Dr Rachel McLatchie, PEM at Starship Hospital, New Zealand (Bursary)
2024: Dr Jocelyne Velupillai, Sustainable and transational simulation in the Gold coast.
