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Building a focal point

26 January 2009

Professor Lightman portrait

Professor Stafford Lightman
Photo by University of Bristol

In 1994, Stafford Lightman, Professor of Medicine at the University of Bristol, was the founding Chairman of the Pituitary Foundation, a patient-run national UK charity that aims to raise public awareness of pituitary disorders and provide information and support for patients and their families. 

The pituitary gland is located at the base of the brain, and regulates the levels of hormones that control metabolism, growth, reproduction and stress responses. Many patients with a pituitary disorder will require life-long drug treatment and monitoring. The Foundation provides a range of support — from information tailored to medical staff, patients and their carers, and a regional network of volunteer-run support groups to an active events programme — all organised to mitigate the daily problems of living with pituitary disease.

book cover scanThe Foundation has 10,000 members and holds an annual conference attended by patients, their carers, doctors and paramedical professionals. Bringing these communities together ensures a dynamic flow of information, with the patients actively participating and having the opportunity to interact at a social level with doctors and other specialists. One of the patients even contributed a chapter to a recent medical text book (Patsy Perrin – A patient’s perspective on pituitary tumours.  In: Management of Pituitary Tumours by Powell MP, Lightman SL and Laws ER.  Humana Press 2003).

Setting up the Pituitary Foundation provides a focus for a diverse yet deeply connected community of sufferers, their carers, families and friends, academics and medical professionals.

Professor Stafford Lightman
A long-standing member of the Foundation’s Medical Committee, Stafford reflects that: “Setting up the Pituitary Foundation provides a focus for a diverse yet deeply connected community of sufferers, their carers, families and friends, academics and medical professionals. It helps us to demonstrate how academic research can be made relevant and accessible, and also helps ensure that it is targeted as closely as possible to patients’ needs.”

Stafford believes strongly in people helping themselves, and, grateful to the University to have allowed him the space to pursue his interests, he notes: “If you’re really convinced that you’re doing the right thing and that what you’re doing is of benefit, keep going and it will work out.”

 

Please contact The Public Engagement Officer for further information.

Further information:

Professor Lightman can be contacted on email at: Stafford.Lightman@bristol.ac.uk.
The Pituitary Foundation, PO Box 1944, Bristol, BS99 2UB Tel: 0845 450 0376, Fax:+44 (0)117 933 0910, Email: helpline@pituitary.org.uk, Web: www.pituitary.org.uk.