Professor Chris Imray
Chris is a Consultant vascular and renal transplant Surgeon (1995- ) at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, Coventry and a Professor at Warwick Medical School (2009- ).
He started climbing whilst at school and has continued to travel the world to fulfill this passion. He has climbed as far afield as the sea cliffs of Cornwall to the volcanoes of Chile. His altitude research began with the Birmingham Medical Research Expeditionary Society in late 1980s, and has continued with the Caudwell Xtreme Everest Research Group and CASE. He took part in the 2006 Xtreme Cho Oyu expedition to Tibet, as one of the medical officers and was the Deputy Climbing Leader of the 2007 Caudwell Xtreme Everest Expedition. He summited both Cho Oyu (8201m) and Everest (8550m) and has the dubious distinction of having the second lowest arterial gases ever recorded in an adult (at 8,400m). He is a member of the Alpine and Climbers Club and sits on the Mount Everest Screening Committee.
As a vascular surgeon he has a particular interest in the management of the high risk carotid patient. He has introduced novel trans cranial Doppler directed intravenous antiplatelet therapies into the management of neurologically unstable patients. Other surgical interests include high risk re-do renal transplantation. An over-arching theme, drawing research findings from hypoxic individuals at altitude, is the fitness of patients for surgery. His PhD is on the hypoxic and ischaemic brain.
He is an acknowledged expert in frostbite and non-freezing cold injuries and runs the UK internet telemedicine frostbite service for the British Mountaineering Council.
Although he has published over 125 peer review papers on various subjects including altitude medicine, cold injury, vascular surgery and renal transplantation, he remains an active mountaineer and altitude researcher.
