Senior censor and vice president for education and training (VPET)

Dr Asif Ali

MBA PhD FRCP

Consultant physician (endocrinology and diabetes), Milton Keynes University Hospital

Compassionate leadership:

I am a physician with almost 30 years of NHS experience. I offer the RCP a combination of clinical excellence, academic training, national educational leadership, and strategic insight from an MBA. I lead with kindness, humility and a strong sense of fairness, ensuring the college remains a caring yet high-performing home for all physicians.

Leadership and governance:

I have a proven track record of successfully aligning national strategy with frontline delivery:

• System transformation: As former chair of the SAC for Endocrinology and Diabetes, I led the national curriculum redevelopment and showed an increase in recruitment from 70% to full subscription.
• Professional integrity: As associate dean (Thames Valley, Oxford), I possess extensive experience with complex revalidation and quality assurance procedures. Having completed investigator training, I am well-prepared to fulfil the duties of the senior censor, ensuring that disciplinary matters are handled with fairness, transparency and psychological safety.
• Supporting individual needs: I have consistently supported residents at both systemic and personal levels, ensuring that training pathways are fair and flexible.

Navigating the new RCP strategy

I will apply my formal management training to ensure the next RCP strategy is resilient.

• Economic and resource management: I offer expert business stewardship to the college. I effectively managed a £2.5 million regional pandemic underspend, reinvesting it into simulation-based training to secure regional training.
• Social and global: An outward-facing RCP must fully embrace its international identity. Although my career is UK-based, my background as an international medical graduate provides a genuine perspective on inclusion. I led regional initiatives to eliminate differential attainment (DA), securing measurable improvements in GMC-reported metrics.
• Technological and ethical: I have supported regional AI fellowships. Importantly, I prioritised sexual safety training across all acute hospitals in the region. My MBA is focused on public-sector management, business ethics and human rights law.

Championing resident doctors

As resident doctors participate in this election for the first time, my commitment is rooted in openness and equity:

1. Educational equity: I will reassess to ensure RCP education is fairly allocated to meet your educational needs.
2. Workforce welfare: I will promote training cultures that prioritise your wellbeing, drawing on my experience leading initiatives to support doctors.
3. Modern assessment: I will utilise my curriculum design and assessment experience to enhance the relevance, validity and sustainability of assessments.

Three pledges

1. Fairness in governance

I will undertake the senior censor’s duties with complete transparency. My aim is to ensure disciplinary procedures are grounded in fairness, psychological safety, and robust support for physicians facing difficulties or with additional needs.

2. Resource stewardship for residents

I will advocate for minimum training resources to ensure safe and effective training environments.

3. A global, inclusive future

Building on my success in reducing DA, I will ensure the RCP is an outward-facing home that values every physician, regardless of background or where they trained. 

I am committed to ensuring the RCP’s resources genuinely serve our diverse, global community of physicians. It would be an honour to serve you as vice president.

Fellows standing for election are asked to complete a declaration of personal interests and good standing in line with RCP policy:

ALI Asif: Declares no relevant interests.

Dr Daniel (Dan) Furmedge

MSc FRCP DLM FHEA AKC

Consultant physician in geriatric and internal medicine, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust

As an experienced consultant physician, my career has been defined by deep commitment to clinical excellence, educational leadership, and robust advocacy for doctors at every career stage. My clinical practice spans acute, inpatient, outpatient and community settings, including hospital at home and care homes. Patient care is my enduring passion and the foundation of my perspective as a physician.

From my medical student days, I have been driven by a love for teaching and learning. My educational journey has included roles as an academic clinical fellow, college tutor, training programme director, textbook author, PACES examiner and RCP censor. Involved in undergraduate and postgraduate education, I have significant experience in postgraduate training, assessment and peer learning, always striving for education that is pragmatic, relevant and inspiring. My approach is grounded in the realities of busy clinical practice, ensuring that educational initiatives are both practical and impactful.

Throughout my career, I have been a vocal and steadfast advocate for doctors. I have led innovative initiatives, such as a unique IMT3 programme and an alternative training pathway for internal medicine to tackle recruitment issues. These programmes have delivered tangible benefits and are being adopted more widely, demonstrating my commitment to practical solutions that address real-world challenges and supporting our next generation and resident doctors. I have won a several local awards for education and supervision, nominated by resident doctors and colleagues.

The coming year presents a pivotal moment for medical education. The Medical Training Review, with its 11 recommendations and four key priorities, alongside the Medical Recruitment (Prioritisation) Bill, will shape the future of our profession. The RCP must provide strong, united leadership to ensure that reforms reflect the needs of doctors and patients alike. If elected, I will listen to and advocate for members and fellows, ensuring their voices are heard and their interests protected at every stage.

My vision is for the RCP to be a lifelong partner for physicians—from undergraduate studies to post-retirement—offering relevant education, career development, and a representative voice on the issues that matter most.

I am committed to:

• Leading the RCP’s involvement in training reforms, ensuring that the interests of physicians and excellence in patient care remain central to all educational activities.
• Advocating for UK-based residents while championing the contributions of and ensuring career opportunities and support for international medical graduates who are a vital part of the NHS.
• Developing innovative, accessible educational resources and CPD opportunities for all physicians.
• Expanding and supporting flexibility and alternative training pathways, providing guidance and networks for trusts across the country.
• Reviewing the impact of internal medicine training on specialty training, ensuring programmes remain fit for purpose.
• Building on existing, and developing new education networks across the UK and internationally.
• Reviewing how RCP rewards those who contribute to education delivery and examining.

I believe my experience, passion and vision make me well-placed to serve as VPET. I am committed to working collaboratively, listening to members and fellows, and ensuring that the RCP remains at the forefront of medical education.

Fellows standing for election are asked to complete a declaration of personal interests and good standing in line with RCP policy:

FURMEDGE Daniel: Declares:

• member of the British Geriatrics Society.

Dr Louella Kate Vaughan

MBBS MPhil DPhil FRACP FRCP

Consultant physician in acute/general medicine, Royal London Hospital, London 

Medical education in the United Kingdom stands on the brink of profound reforms. The 10 Year Plan and the Medical Training Review represent opportunities to improve the education, training and working lives of resident, SAS and locally employed doctors across the NHS. However, they also carry serious risks: fragmented training pathways, diluted standards and blighted careers. The next RCP vice president for education and training will play a critical role in shaping policy and ensuring effective, principled implementation.

My past experience equips me well for this role, if elected. I am a resident supervisor, MRCP PACES examiner and have organised local PACES and MBBS exams. I have held academic posts, served on numerous committees including examination, faculty and national training boards. I organise and teach on national and international courses and conferences. Through my previous work at the Nuffield Trust, I have become a nationally recognised expert in health policy and have been consistently critical of proposals that risk undermining medical education and training.

The profession faces wider challenges, particularly workforce substitution and a looming global shortage of doctors. The RCP must act as a standard bearer for the profession, championing doctors and ‘doctoring’. It must make the argument for the rigor of training, set high standards for practice and support doctors across the NHS and internationally to deliver the best care possible for patients and to protect the public. The RCP must also meet its fundamental obligation to deliver fair, reliable and error-free examinations.

The VPET as senior censor plays a key role in the running of the RCP more broadly. My time as the first female Harveian librarian and as an elected council member has given me three things. An excellent knowledge of the RCP’s history and how it works. An appreciation of how good governance and fiscal discipline are essential to the RCP’s survival. A commitment to the preservation of the RCP’s distinctive culture and role. Formal training with the Institute of Directors has also prepared me for the duties and responsibilities of serving on the Board of Trustees. 

It is my belief that the Royal College of Physicians should be run by physicians for physicians, to deal with physicianly business. Nothing less than the future of the profession hangs on the RCP articulating and championing, once again, what it means to be a doctor and a physician. 

About Louella Vaughan MBBS MPhil DPhil FRACP FRCP. Universities Queensland/Cambridge/Oxford/INSEAD. Consultant physician in acute and general medicine, Royal London Hospital. Senior fellow, Amsterdam University Medical Centre
with previous clinical academic posts at the Nuffield Trust and Imperial College London. Expertise in acute and emergency care, health systems and policy, history and philosophy of Medicine. Harveian librarian (2020–2024), elected member of RCP Council (2021–2024), previous member of the FHJ Editorial Board and various committees. Worked for/with: Society for Acute Medicine, NICE, HEE, NCEPOD, HQIP, NIHR, RCEM, NMC, Parliamentary Ombudsman. 

www.linkedin.com/in/louellavaughan; www.researchgate.net/profile/Louella-Vaughan-2/research

Fellows standing for election are asked to complete a declaration of personal interests and good standing in line with RCP policy:

VAUGHAN Louella Kate: Declares:

• member of The Society for Acute Medicine and the British Medical Association.
• previously worked for the Nuffield Trust (a registered charity), which included consultancy-style work for NHS organisations, NHS England and several governments (Northern Irelands, Wales, Jersey and the Netherlands).
• previously undertaken freelance consultancy work for NHS Trusts through PPL Consultancy (a third sector organisation) - none of which relates directly to the work of the RCP.