David Southall

David Southall is a retired British paediatrician whose career spanned hospital child health, research on infant breathing and international humanitarian medicine. Before specialising he spent four years in general adult medicine, a year in obstetrics and two years as a general practitioner. In 1993 he went to besieged Sarajevo for the British government's aid agency to identify children needing urgent evacuation, then led a UNICEF programme for children in Mostar and in camps for displaced families until 1995, work for which he received an OBE in 1999. He founded the charity now called Maternal and Childhealth Advocacy International, of which he remained a trustee in 2023. His research included a large study of newborn breathing pauses and heart rhythm and a randomised trial of continuous negative extrathoracic pressure therapy. His child protection work, including covert video surveillance of suspected fabricated or induced illness, was highly controversial and led to repeated General Medical Council proceedings, a period struck off the register and reinstatement on appeal in 2010.