Medical Director
Dr. Ian Cairns
“It’s wonderful on the Island!!!”, they told me when I applied for the post here as Medical Director of the Earl Mountbatten Hospice… and they were right!!! I am very pleased to join such an enthusiastic, committed team which provides such a fantastic service of Specialist Palliative Care for the Isle of Wight.
The In-patient Hospice provides a wonderful focus for all of this, and links with the other Hospice services which, in my opinion are so important; the Day Hospice Unit, the Macmillan Nursing service (which operates both in the community, and within St Mary’s Hospital), the Marie Curie nursing service, and the Hospice Extended Care Team. This all means that patients can easily access the care they need, wherever they happen to be, be it at home, in nursing or residential care, in hospital, or in the hospice itself.
Perhaps I can use this opportunity to introduce myself; I was born in Southern Rhodesia and educated there. I moved on to Dundee for medical school, and having started my career as a Medical Officer in the R.A.F., went on to become a single-handed general practitioner in rural Cumbria.
During this time, I found that I had a special interest in palliative medicine, and developed a “Hospice-at-Home” service in the area. All of this led me to give up my practice in 1999, and to go for specialist training, once more back in Dundee. This was completed in 2003, when I became a consultant.
Outside of medicine, my main current interests are kiting and cycling. I am especially proud of having recently completed a 480 Km. cycle ride from Lake Titicaca to Manchu Picchu in Peru to raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Support. The altitude (4250 metres), and terrain, made it quite the most difficult thing I have ever accomplished… though I am already finding that even the Isle of Wight has some testing cycling hills around it!
