Dr Jim Down

Dr Jim Down is a consultant in Intensive Care and Anaesthesia at University College London Hospitals and author of two books; ‘Life Support, Diary of an ICU Doctor on the Frontline of the Covid Crisis,’ (Viking, Penguin 2021) and ‘Life in the Balance, A Doctor’s Stories of Intensive Care.’ (Viking, Penguin 2023).  He is Trust clinical lead for organ donation, chair of the Hospital Guidelines Committee and the departmental weekly scientific meetings and is consultant representative on the Trust Wellbeing committee. He was previously divisional director of the Intensive Care Unit and chair of the consultants’ group. 

In the course of a thirty-year career he has attended a train crash, treated victims of the 7/7 London Bombings and looked after poisoned Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko. Alongside his clinical work during the Covid pandemic he was appointed Hospital lead for medical ethics.

His interests include medical ethics and law, clinical decision making, staff mental health and medical story telling. In 2023 he gave the Aneurin Bevan Lecture at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival and in 2024 delivered a Tedx Lecture in Manchester

He lives in North London with his wife and sixteen-year-old twins and can be found most mornings shivering at his local Lido.