Ten questions with Professor Jonathan Fallowfield

 

 

1. What does innovation mean to you? 

Something new, something useful and surprising.

 

2. What book do you recommend to others?

I'm not going to try and be clever here. I read to escape and unwind. So, anything by Lee Child or Jeffery Deaver.

 

3. What gives you hope?

Young people. They seem more committed, engaged, inclusive, and more or less more sensible than we ever were.

 

4. If you had one more hour in the day how would you spend it?

Sleep, 100%. I don't get nearly enough.

 

5. What piece of advice has stuck with you?

Be nice to people on your way up because you'll meet them on your way down. 

 

6. What scares you?

Sharks. I saw the film Jaws at a tender age. 

 

7. What has been your biggest success?

So, my biggest success was getting through an SHO interview to be appointed at the Hammersmith Hospital and the Royal Brompton Hospital. I worked with so many inspirational clinicians and academics that, within a year, I went from someone with imposter syndrome to a budding clinical academic, and it was an inflection point in my career.

 

8. What would your friend say your greatest strengths and weaknesses are? 

For my strengths, they would say: determined, loyal, authentic. For weaknesses: I work too hard and I’m too competitive. I don't like to lose anything. Anything.

 

9. What failure has helped shape you?  

Well, failures can lead to new opportunities. So, I failed to get an MRC Clinician Scientist Fellowship, but I ended up getting an Academy of Medical Sciences Clinician Scientist Fellowship. Baked into this was a comprehensive leadership development programme and a personal coach. That experience has literally shaped me as an academic and a leader.

 

10. What future innovation would you like to see happen in your lifetime? 

3D printed organs. The number of people waiting for transplants massively outstrips the supply of donor organs, and people die every year waiting. This field is moving rapidly, but the challenge is getting the organs to function as they should. That's the holy grail.