Internationally renowned trauma specialist, professor David Alexander, who has worked all over the world with people affected by major incidents, including the Piper Alpha disaster, has been appointed clinical advisor to Arbroath-based IED Training Solutions.
The appointment of professor Alexander - who takes up his new role with immediate effect - significantly strengthens IED Training’s team, which specialises in a range of areas including health and safety, risk management, leadership skills, corporate resilience, and trauma support.
IED Training Solutions was set up in 2015 by former Royal Marine Ian Clark, who was introduced to professor Alexander a year later by a mutual friend.
Particularly interested in the work IED Training was doing in the area of trauma stress management, Professor Alexander soon began working with the team, providing advice and guidance in a number of areas.
Ian, managing director of IED Training, said: “We feel extremely privileged that David has formalised his arrangement with IED Training. He is, first and foremost, a very good friend, and we have an immense amount of respect for his academic and professional achievements.
“Many of our clients are increasingly requesting advice and assistance with their well-being strategies, and I feel that it is absolutely vital that we have the academic rigour and evidence-based principles of practice to complement and enhance the work that we already do. We look forward to learning from David to ensure the services that IED provide are the best that they can be.”
A former professor of Mental Health at the University of Aberdeen, professor Alexander has advised at many major incidents including natural disasters, accidents, bombings, and shootings both in this country and abroad throughout his career.
In 2001, he was the “Distinguished Trauma Visitor” to the Republic of South Africa, and he is an Honorary Professor at the National University of Science and Technology, the premier university in Pakistan. He set up Scotland’s first Trauma Clinic and Trauma Research Centre, and has served as an Expert Witness for numerous trauma cases.
Professor Alexander has taught at the Scottish Police College, the UK Home Office, the FBI Academy at Quantico, the Pakistan School of Military Intelligence, and the Russian School of Militia. He is currently one of three Principal Advisors to police services across the UK for serious incidents, including hostage taking.
Over his career, professor Alexander has been recognised for his work as part of major incidents, such as leading the psychiatric response to the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988. Along with his former colleague Professor Susan Klein, he received a Humanitarian Award from the Scottish Government for their work after the Pakistan Earthquake of 2005 and, in 2017, he was presented with the Aberdeen Medico-Chirurgical Society President’s Medal in recognition of his local, national and international excellence in the area of psychological and psychiatric aspects of trauma.
He said: “I am really pleased to be invited to make a contribution to the development of IED. From the time I first met Ian Clark, I have been impressed by his team’s enthusiastic but realistic approach to the management of trauma; their sensitivity to the needs of their clients, and their awareness of the inescapable value of evidence-based or at least eminence-based practice: good intentions are just not enough.
“They are a modest, refreshingly unpretentious but skilled and enterprising team comprising professionals from different professional backgrounds. They have made me very welcome, as they do all those who choose to use their services.”