BSMS > About BSMS > BSMS20 > Staff spotlight > Staff spotlight: Professor Bobbie Farsides

Staff spotlight: Professor Bobbie Farsides

Meet Bobbie Farsides, Professor of Clinical and Biomedical Ethics.

Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?

I grew up in London. My mother was Irish and my father was Greek and their friendship group was wonderfully international. I attended local state schools before going on to study Government at the LSE where I stayed for my PhD.

Why did you choose your field of specialty?

I didn’t consciously choose to be a bioethicist. My Phd was in 17^th and 18^th political philosophy. Whilst in my first job at Keele University my head of department saw that medical ethics was becoming very popular in the USA, and asked for volunteers to move into that field in the hope of securing the department’s survival. I stepped up and have never turned back.

What brought you to BSMS and what has your career looked like until this point?

At Keele I ended up establishing two successful MA courses, one in Medical Ethics and Law the other in Ethics of Cancer and Palliative Care – both of which are still running nearly thirty years later. After ten years in Keele I moved to King’s College London, and was at their specialist Centre of Medical Law and Ethics for a further ten years. At King’s I was in at the beginning of the development of empirical bioethics as an academic discipline, and with Professor Priscilla Alderson was the first recipient of a Wellcome Trust Research grant in bioethics. Through that project I met Prof Clare Williams who become my chief collaborator over a series of further projects looking at the experience of scientists and health care professionals working in ethically contested fields. As a family we lived in Brighton whilst I was at Kings. I was delighted when BSMS opened, I was attracted by the idea of being in near the start of a new medical school, so I took a chance and moved from an established centre to somewhere new and unknown.

What is your favourite thing about working at BSMS?

I have been so happy at BSMS, but it has changed a lot in my time here. At first, I loved the small size of the medical school and the fact that you could more or less know everyone – this was so different to King’s. As time has gone on, I have valued the increasingly vibrant and varied students we attract, and I really appreciate my colleagues, both in our amazing Ethics team and more widely. As well as finding excellent colleagues I have made friends for life. I value that senior colleagues have always trusted and supported me.

BACKGROUND IMAGE FOR PANEL

Who has inspired you most in life?

So many people, but in terms of my career a senior academic, Professor Margot Brazier, who was Professor of Medical Law at Manchester for many years. She was the living example of the fact that you can be clever and kind at the same time. A true role model and a wonderful mentor to so many people. Also, Prof Jonathan Glover, my boss at KCL for several years (although he hated that label). A really gifted philosopher with strong values and principles.

What is your biggest professional achievement?

I am always happiest when I feel as if I have engaged my philosophical skills in support of people doing really important work within the NHS and wider community. I am so lucky to have been involved in some really important public policy work over the years including the NHS Organ Donation Taskforce and more recently The Infected Blood Inquiry.

What's your favourite memory from your time at BSMS?

That’s a hard one, but I think it is possibly when a group of BSMS students put on the play The Tuesday Group written by my late friend and BSMS colleague Sue Eckstein. It was an incredibly emotional evening, and we were so proud of the students. They gave their all to a really demanding piece of theatre based on true but anonymised stories from ten years of the patient support group at St Christopher’s Hospice London.

Describe BSMS in three words.

Bold, Proud and Brightonesque