A Dumfries Infirmary medic has been named as the country’s best doctor.
Dr Freda Newlands, from the Stewartry, won the accolade at the Who Cares Wins awards on Tuesday.
Hosted by Davina McCall, the awards celebrate healthcare heroes from the frontline NHS staff to the ordinary people who go above and beyond.
A TV show featuring all the winners will be aired on Channel 4 and All 4 at 6.30pm on Sunday.
Dr Newlands, 62, is an emergency medicine specialist and has travelled the world providing urgent medical care to those in need, most recently spending two months in Ukraine with the frontline medical aid charity, UK-Med.
She has also spent time working in Jordan, Bhutan, Gaza, as well as Bangladesh where she treated patients in the Rohingya refugee camps during the deadly diptheria outbreak in 2017.
She was inspired to get into medicine as a youngster growing up watching the news but became a biology teacher before starting medical school as a mature student in 2004.
Her first overseas post came in 2014, when she was posted on the northern Jordan border with Medecins Sans Frontieres.
Dr Newlands said: “It was harrowing and what I saw there remains some of the worst injuries I’ve had to treat. Children with really awful bomb blast injuries, mine blasts, three limb amputees, horrific burns. It was my job to stabilise patients as an emergency doctor so they could go on to have surgery and rehabilitation.”
When she returned home, she registered as a member of UK-Med and worked in Bangladesh until 2018. From 2018 until 2019, she was part of the UK-Med co-ordination team.
She worked for NHS Dumfries and Galloway as an emergency department doctor during the Covid-19 pandemic and travelled to Ukraine less than a week after the war had started.
Dr Newlands said she was “proud” to be recognised for the work she did with UK-Med.
She was nominated by colleague Richard Dear, 52, head of logistics for UK-Med.
He said: “Freda brings so much more than just her medical care to her work as a doctor. Her medical care is of course excellent, and she delivers it with professionalism and calm in some of the most uncomfortable and dangerous settings.
“What stands Freda out as a good doctor is her interactions and management of patients around the world, all cultures, languages and needs, but always with care, compassion and empathy.
“She is an inspirational leader, able to build and lead both deployed and national teams, building rapport and confidence with her colleagues, beneficiaries and the communities they live in.
“Freda is always one of the first to drop everything at home, her family, her friends, and with the support of her colleagues deploy without question into whatever or wherever UK-Med need her expertise.
“Someone who takes these risks, and is this selfless, kind and giving, deserves every accolade and credit for her dedication to both the UK health service and humanitarian response.”
“People thought I was a bit bonkers starting medical school in my 40s, much less travelling to all these places across the globe, but I’m pretty determined and helping other people feels like something I was born to do.”
