David Edwards (Castle, 1963 - 1973)
David Edwards (Ca 63-73) is the Weston Professor of Neonatal Medicine, whose aim is to reduce the number of newborn infants who grow up with problems caused by brain injury in the newborn period, and head of the Neonatal Medicine Group in the Medical Research Council Clinical Sciences Centre at Hammersmith. David became the 9th Barnabas speaker on 29th April.
David recalled how he had been started at King's at the bottom of class and described himself as one of the worst choristers. However he had discovered an interest in reading and History which he went on to study at Oxford and then Medicine. He realised from experience how suffering as a child had a long lasting impact usually totally unobserved by adults and wanted to alleviate that suffering by improving medicine for children. He warned pupils of the severe challenges facing the world and the problems they could try to resolve if they were interested in doing so.
Later that day a boat was named in David's honour in recognition of his being in the winning Oxford crew of the 1975 Boat Race.
