Consultants

Michael Athanassacopoulos

Clinical Lead – Northern General Hospital

Michael is a Consultant Spinal Surgeon with NHS practice at the Northern General and Sheffield Children’s Hospitals with a private practice at Spire Claremont Hospital. He finished his speciality in Trauma and Orthopaedics in the General Hospital of Athens ‘KAT’, the major trauma centre of Athens, Greece in 2011. He specialised in Adult and Paediatric Spinal Surgery and completed fellowships in several prestigious hospitals including Great Ormond Street Hospital (London), Sheffield Teaching and Sheffield Children’s Hospitals.

Michael was procurement lead for Trauma and Orthopaedics at STH and is currently Clinical Lead for Spinal Surgery

Lee Breakwell

Clinical Lead – Sheffield Children’s Hospital

Lee graduated from the University of Sheffield, before undertaking his basic training in Sheffield. He undertook orthopaedic training in the West Midlands, before fellowships in St Louis, San Diego and Nottingham. Lee gained his MSc in Orthopaedic Engineering from the University of Wales, furthering an interest in biomechanics.
Lee was appointed to Sheffield Children’s and Teaching Hospitals in 2006. Lee was co-founder of the British Spine Registry, which has gone on to become the largest Spinal registry and a mandatory part of spinal practice.      Lee is President-Elect for British Scoliosis Society and council member of the British Orthopaedic Association. He has previously served on the Councils of British Association of Spine Surgeons and AO Spine UK, as well as the UK arm of the European Medical Device Safety Group. Lee works on collaborative research with both the Medical School on disc biology, and the School of Engineering on spinal biomechanics.

In his spare time, he enjoys keeping fish and growing Bonsai.

Ashley Cole

Ashley has been a Consultant Spinal Surgeon at the Sheffield Children’s and Northern General Hospitals in Sheffield from 2003. Since 2005 he and his colleagues have trained many Spinal Fellows in adult and paediatric spinal surgery, equipping them with the skills they need to be Spinal Consultants.

Whilst on the BASS Executive between 2010 and launch in 2012, Ashley co-developed the British Spine Registry with Lee Breakwell. Ashley became the first Chair of a BOA group developing the newer Orthopaedic Registries (TORUS). Since 2005, Ashley has been the Spinal Chair of the Orthopaedic Expert Working Group advising the NHS on spinal coding, healthcare resource groups and tariff. After being a member of the last Spinal Taskforce in 2010/11, Ashley became Chair of the Spinal Services Clinical Reference Group advising NHS England on commissioning specialised spinal and spinal cord injuries. During this role between 2012 and 2019, they introduced a national service specification for specialised spinal surgery and developed the Regional Spinal Networks which have continued to flourish. Ashley is currently Chief Investigator of the NIHR HTA funded Bracing Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis (BASIS) study, a multi-centre RCT comparing full-time versus night-time bracing. He is also on BASS Executive as BSR lead

Neil Chiverton

Neil Chiverton

Neil was appointed as a Consultant adult spinal surgeon to the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHSFT in 2001. His main area of clinical interest is the management of spinal metastatic disease.

Having previously been the clinical lead for adult spinal surgery services at the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield, Neil is currently the clinical lead for the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Spinal Network.

Neil is a faculty member for AO Spine and has been invited faculty at courses and spine society meetings, both national and international.

In addition to his clinical, managerial, and educational responsibilities, Neil has worked in an advisory capacity with NICE, NHSI, NHSR, GIRFT, RCS, BASS, and SBNS.

He is currently Chair for Yorkshire and Humber RSN.

Marcel Ivanov

Marcel Ivanov

Mr Marcel Ivanov is a Consultant Neurosurgeon and Spinal Surgeon whose main NHS practice is based at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital. He is Spinal Lead at the Department of Neurosurgery and Audit Lead for Neurosciences and Director of AO SPINE Centre Sheffield. In 2017-2019 he served as AO SPINE UK Council Officer (Neurosurgery) and since 2019 he is Chair of AO SPINE UK & Ireland.

Marcel qualified as a doctor in 1999 and as a Neurosurgeon in 2007 with his comprehensive neurosurgical training initially in Iasi, Romania and post CCT Fellowship training in the UK. He was awarded Neurosurgery International Fellowship training at the UIHC, Iowa, USA (2004), received AOSPINE-EANS Spinal Fellowship training in Leeds, UK (2008) and Neuro-Oncology Fellowship training at the Walton Centre, Liverpool, UK (2009). He further supplemented his training with a period as a Visiting Fellow in several major neurosurgical centres around the world (USA, Germany, Finland, Belgium, Japan).

Marcel is passionate about teaching; he lectures, demonstrates as well as chairs numerous neurosurgical events nationally and internationally. He is a member of the UK National Neurosurgery Selection Board and Member of International Neurosurgical Examination Boar for EANS and AO Spine. He is a passionate faculty and is frequently invited to teach on international courses. He is the UK representative at the EANS Training Courses.

Marcel plays an active role within European Association of Neurosurgical Societies, AO SPINE and EUROSPINE. He was member of the EANS IM Committee Member (2012-2018) and was elected Chair of the EANS International Relationships Committee for two consecutive terms (2017-2021). Since 2021 he is member of the EANS Board (Historian) and board member of EANS Spine Committee. He is founding member of Emerging Technologies and Innovations in Neurosurgery Task Force. Since 2019 Marcel is Expert Panel Member on Medical Devices and for European Commission.

Marcel is a Fellow of Royal College of Surgeons from England and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Sheffield University, and is married to his wife, Claudia. They have two children.

Paul Brewer

Paul joined the team as a Consultant Spinal Surgeon in 2022. He is is dealing with a wide range of spinal pathologies with specialist interests in adult degenerative conditions, trauma, and metastatic disease of the spine. Paul is motivated, enthusiastic, and excited to work in a surgical speciality in which technology and skills/ techniques are advancing rapidly.

After Warwick Medical school, he was appointed as an academic junior doctor and his interest in education and research continues to develop. Paul was in the first cohort of United Kingdom Spine Society Board funded position on the British Orthopaedic Association ‘Future Leaders Programme’. This equipped him with the skills to lead change through quality improvement work, analysis of performance and team working- key attributes for this role. Paul’s recent role as the trainee representative for education and research for the British Association of Spinal Surgeons (BASS) has allowed him to develop skills within committees to drive change, develop research ideas and create educational content for surgical trainees interested in spinal surgery. Paul has led two national projects with the prospective observational study on management of incidental durotomies open currently. During his 12-month senior spinal surgery fellowship in an AO recognised centre (Brisbane, Australia) Paul was exposed to a different health care system with comparable outcomes to the UK. He also spent 12-months in Birmingham between the Royal Orthopaedic and Queen Elizabeth Hospital developing his clinical and surgical skills managing primary and secondary tumours of the spine, trauma and degenerative pathologies.

He is currently T&O Surgical Tutor for postgraduate trainees at STH.From a personal perspective, Paul enjoys playing golf and spending time with his family.

Surya Gandham

Surya joined the team as a Consultant Spinal Surgeon in 2024 nd works at both Sheffield Children’s and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals.

Surya is a fellowship trained orthopaedic spinal surgeon having completed two years of adult and paediatric spinal fellowships at Sheffield, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and The Walton Centre. He has a specialist interest in paediatric and adult deformity (scoliosis), adult degenerative diseases, trauma and metastatic disease of the spine.

Surya went to Liverpool Medical School and completed his junior surgical and orthopaedic training on the Mersey rotation. During this time, he developed a keen interest in teaching having run the regional orthopaedic spine teaching programme. He has also been the education lead on the British Associations of Spine Surgeons (BASS) sub-committee and British Scoliosis Society (BSS) Trainee lead with responsibility for trainee needs and education. His research interests include both adult and paediatric spinal pathologies and gained several publications and prizes for his work.

Surya has also completed the prestigious BASS/BSS Presidents Travelling Fellowship and the British Orthopaedic Association Future Leaders Programme where he gained valuable experience of other units and leadership roles. In his spare time, he enjoys fitness pursuits and spending time with his family

Shreya Srinivas

Shreya is a spinal surgeon working at both Northern General hospital and Sheffield Children’s hospital since May 2020. Her clinical practice covers adult trauma, tumour, and paediatric deformity . After completing Orthopaedic training in Newcastle and Mersey deanery, she spent her fellowship years in Vancouver (Adult spine, AO North America fellow) and Liverpool (Paediatric Spine, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital). She is one of a small number of female surgeon members of BSS and has a keen interest as a surgeon educator.

She is actively involved in training surgeons of the future and believes it is important they see “someone like you” . She joined the RCS England Court of Examiners in 2023. She is a strong advocate of mentorship and equitable workplace practices.  She has an interest in registry-based research to improve patient and clinical outcomes. She is an ODEP Spine panel member which complements her role as Governance and BSR lead for British Scoliosis Society. At a Trust level, she is Medical Quality lead for Orthopaedics. After travelling widely in UK and abroad, she has moved to Sheffield with her family and enjoys exploring the outdoor city with her dog.

James Tomlinson

James’ practice covers all aspects of adult elective and emergency spinal surgery, and he has been a consultant at STH since 2015. James is now the Associate Medical director for Education in the Trust.

He has been trust lead for Human Factors. James has a significant interest in postgraduate training and is a member of the Orthopaedic SAC and ST3 Selection Design Group. He was Associate Dean for Quality for West Yorkshire. James has research interests in education and surgeon performance and is a member of the RCSEd NOTSS faculty.