Amaia Arana

I was born in Bilbao, the Basque Country, and I got my medical qualification from the Basque Country University. My post-gradual training was done mainly in the UK but I also spent two years in Australia, Sydney and Melbourne. I am working as a consultant paediatric anaesthetist at the Leeds Royal Infirmary – Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, UK since 2000

I am very interested in all aspects of health improvement in the developing work particularly anything related to anaesthesia. During 2008-2009 I worked for a year at the Queen’s Elizabeth Hospital in Blantyre, Malawi, where I had clinical and teaching commitments within the department of anaesthesia. I have also joined missions as a volunteer with Interplast, Mercy-ships and Operation Smile in Ecuador, Liberia, Philippines, Honduras and India.

My first contact with PTC was in 2000 when I met Douglas Wilkinson during an anaesthetic congress in Peru. At that time he was considering the introduction of PTC to Latin America, and the first PTC course took place a year later in Asuncion – Paraguay in September 2001 where I participated as an instructor. Since then I have been witnessing the successful evolution and expansion of the PTC through Latin America and I am proud to see how much they have grown. More recently I have been involved with the PTC-China Project as an instructor and as the medical coordinator of the project. I am glad to say that it is progressing very favourably as well.

Other interests: you have probably guessed by now that I enjoy travelling, I am also very curious about the different ways of looking at our world from different cultural perspectives, and I also like reading, swimming and walking.