• Where did you grow up? My father was in the Royal Air Force, so we moved around when I was a child. I was born in Kent, in the South of England, and then lived in many different places in the UK and abroad. I lived for five years in Singapore and two years in Bahrain. With all of these moves, I went to 11 different schools in the UK and abroad. Not only did I change schools frequently, I lived in 18 places by the time I was 18! My nomadic childhood has continued into my adult life and since leaving home to go to Manchester University at 18, I have lived in 23 more homes, took up residence in Oman and in the USA, and travelled to 90+ countries over the years.
• What was your first job? Besides a paper round my first job was pumping gas at a petrol station in north London. It was an interesting time as the British government brought in ration books for petrol in 1973 because of the OPEC oil embargo linked to the Yom Kippur war. The area where the petrol station was located was wealthy with lots of expensive gas guzzling cars and tips were plentiful if a little more ‘juice’ could be squeezed out of the pumps 😊
• What was your worst job and why? When I was a student, I worked at Arkady Soya Mill in Old Trafford Manchester – making soy-based mixes as well as bulk soy products. A team of 8 of us had to load a very large mixer with the various ingredients, blend them and then bag the products. All in all about 30 minutes work, we would then go to the canteen drink tea and eat bacon butties (sandwiches) for an hour and then go back and slowly do another load. After a few days of too many bacon butties and cups of tea I volunteered to go back and start another load as I was bored… nearly started a riot as the regulars didn’t want any increase in productivity. To ease the boredom, I read 3 novels a week while at work!
• What was your favorite mistake?  What did you learn from it? This is a challenging one, not because I don’t make mistakes but trying to pick a ‘favorite’ one. I remember going through one company reorganization and I had the choice of staying or leaving with a ‘package’. Being anxious about the unknown made me chose to stay where I had a few years with a miserable manager before I moved onto a new organization. After eventually leaving corporate life, I have learnt that taking a leap into the unknown is a good thing – some anxiety initially but very soon new doors open and great opportunities appear. One of those great opportunities was joining the NEBGH and the opportunity to work with a great team and meet many more fantastic people – members of NEBGH.
• What does your license plate say and why? My license plate is DR CHILL this comes from my days as a house officer (first year resident) in hospital when they embroidered each doctor’s name on their white coats. They couldn’t fit ‘Dr Cunningham-Hill’ so they instead wrote ‘Dr C-Hill’ and Dr Chill came into being!
• What’s your favorite beer? Any hazy IPA’s. Before I moved to the US all I knew of US beers was Budweiser so after living here I was so pleased to find the amazing array of microbrews that have emerged over the last 15 years. The US now has some of the best beers in the world, and I should know because I think I have tried them in every country I have been to!
• What’s the most interesting or surprising thing you’ve learned since joining the organization? That animals are some of the teams’ favorite friends, from Candice’s kangaroos, Diane’s cats, Courtney’s dogs, and Adria’s sharks!
• What were some of your most important or favorite charitable endeavors/medical missions? I love adventure and getting off the beaten path so was drawn to a group called the Adventurists who put on crazy charity events. I have done two, the first was driving an Indian autorickshaw 2,500 miles across India from Shillong (NE India near Bhutan) to Colva, Goa on the west coast raising $16,000. The second was driving, well to be precise pushing, lifting, kicking, a South American Moto-Taxi (three wheeled 150cc motorbike contraption) from Asunción, Paraguay across Bolivia to Cuzco in Peru. Theoretically feasible except the moto-taxi’s aren’t very good at going up hills and someone forgot to mention getting to 15,000 to cross the Andes! This trip I raised $12,000. Then there was a Rotaplast plastic surgery mission to Monrovia, Liberia – fascinating trip to a fantastic country despite the scars from 15 years of civil war and a devastating Ebola Virus outbreak.