Colonel Nigel Tai qualified as a doctor from University College London in 1991. He pursued
surgical training in London, Essex and South Africa before gaining Fellowship of the Royal
College of Surgeons in 1996. He joined 144 Parachute Sqn (V), 23 Parachute Field
Ambulance in 1999 and commissioned as a Captain in the Territorial Army in 2000. He
undertook a research fellowship in novel vascular conduits at UCL, gaining a Master of
Surgery degree in 2001 before spending a year as a Trauma Fellow in Johannesburg General
Hospital, returning to the UK in 2003. He was appointed to the Royal London Hospital as
Consultant in Trauma & Vascular Surgery in 2005, prior to commissioning in the Regular
Army in 2006 and deploying on Op HERRICK 4 as surgeon to 3 PARA Battlegroup. He
deployed to Baghdad with the 86 th Combat Support Hospital in 2008, and returned to Camp
Bastion as a Trauma Surgeon in 2009, 2012, 2013 (as Deployed Medical Director of the UK
Role 3 Hospital) and in 2014.

He has served as Director of the Definitive Surgery and Trauma Skills course and Tutor in
Trauma & Emergency Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons, Senior Lecturer in the
Academic Department of Military Surgery and Trauma, Royal Centre for Defence Medicine
and Director of Trauma at the Royal London Hospital. In 2016 he served as the Clinical
Director of 16 Medical Regiment, 16 Air Assault Brigade, which deployed a United Nations
Level II+ hospital in Bentiu, South Sudan as part of UNMISS. Following his return from
Operation TRENTON he now works within the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine as
Assistant Head (Implementation) whilst maintaining a strong clinical commitment to the
Royal London Hospital’s Major Trauma and Vascular Surgical Services.

Colonel Tai was awarded the International Military Surgeon’s Award by the Uniformed
Services University of Health Sciences, Bethesda in 2010 and served as Honorary Surgeon to
Her Majesty the Queen from 2014-2018.