Our people
Our people, both past and present
Proving medical and emergency aid to people marginalised by conflict, poverty, or remote locations.
Dr Alison Beadsworth
LLB (Hons) MBBS FRCEM DMCC DTM&H Co-founder and Trustee
Alison leads our emergency projects. She is a consultant in Emergency Medicine and a fellow of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine. She graduated from Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School (now Imperial College London) in 1997. She has worked in hospitals in the UK and Qatar.
Alison first went to Romania as a volunteer in 1990 in response to the orphanage crisis after the fall of Ceausescu. She found herself drawn to the medical needs of the children and continued visiting projects while training to become a doctor and after qualifying. In 2013, she was awarded the William Rutherford International Award by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine in recognition of her work overseas.
In addition to her role at Iasis, Alison co-founded Children on the Edge and served as its chair of trustees; she has volunteered with Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) in Tanzania; she is on the emergency register for UK-Med and is a DART (Disaster and Relief Team) doctor with the charity Samaritan’s Purse, with whom she was deployed to Ukraine in 2022. Look at her most recent work helping in Gaza on our blog page!
Dr Colin Tourle
MBE MBBS LRCP MRCS DRCOG Co-founder and Trustee
Colin leads our primary healthcare projects. He is a retired NHS GP who served his patients in Hailsham, East Sussex, for over 40 years. He graduated in medicine from King’s College London. In 2022, he was elected into King’s Distinguished Alumni community and honored with the King’s In Service Award.
In 2017, he was awarded an MBE in recognition of his voluntary medical work overseas – with Iasis, Children on the Edge, The Children’s Society, the Zambia Flying Doctor Service and in Canada working with the indigenous Indians.
Colin is an entertaining public speaker and prolific fundraiser for Iasis. He is available for talks to medical audiences as well as general-interest groups.
Joy White
DBO(T) MSc MA Trustee
Joy leads our eye health projects. She qualified in orthoptics from Sheffield, becoming an orthoptic teacher. This led to her move to Moorfields Eye Hospital, London.
Whilst working there in the 1990s, she met Dr Colin Tourle and began her association with Children on the Edge and Iasis. Joy was a member of the team that carried out vision screening in Romanian and Albanian orphanages and in schools for the visually impaired in Romania and Sarajevo.
Joy is now Head of Service for Orthoptics at the Sussex Eye Hospital in Brighton and a former chair of the Southern Branch of the British and Irish Orthoptic Society (BIOS). She has been involved with the Brighton Lusaka Health Link charity in Zambia, training eye health care clinicians. She has also volunteered with Orbis, an international ophthalmology charity.
Dr Nikesh Parekh
BMedSci (Hons) DPMSA MBBS MPH Trustee
Nikesh has worked with Iasis in the Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon. He is a GP with a special interest in public and global health. He is currently practicing in Wellington, New Zealand. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 2009 and has studied medicine and health at the Society of Apothecaries, King’s College London and the University of Sheffield. He is also a research fellow in aging at Brighton and Sussex Medical School.
Clare Evershed-Booth
Finance Manager
Clare has been involved with Iasis since 2010, initially as part of her work with The Body Shop Foundation and now working directly for us. Her 35-year varied accounting career spans the charitable sector, a public body and several multinational businesses.
Take a look at some of the amazing work we have done over the years
Former Team Members
We are immensely grateful to the following professionals who previously worked on projects for Iasis and deserve a special mention:
Mark Karas
Specialist optometrist who led numerous trips to Romania, Moldova, Bosnia and Albania.
Dr David Fahey
Consultant ophthalmologist and Public Health consultant who helped to initiate our project in Ethiopia.
Liz Gould
Optometrist who supported various projects over many years
Michael Crossland
Optometrist who was involved in our trips to Romania
Mr David Jones
Paediatric orthopedic surgeon who led a surgical team to Albania to perform operations and share his expertise.
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