Richard Villar

Emergency Response Surgeon

Richard served as SAS Medical Officer, operating in the field on soldiers and civilians alike. He is now a leading orthopaedic surgeon and a member of the Disaster Emergency Response Team - responding to events like the earthquake in Haiti and civil war in Libya. Richard describes arriving in a stricken area with the infrastructure destroyed: "Without water, power or the rule of law, you take nothing for granted - the challenges go beyond what most of us can imagine."

Speaking Topics

High Performance
Resilience
Science

Biography

Richard Villar is an orthopaedic surgeon with a special interest in the surgery of conflict and disaster. He was previously the Regimental Medical Officer to the SAS and a Team Leader for the UK’s Disaster Response for more than a decade. His experiences in the world’s trouble spots are almost unrivalled and he has operated on patients in more than thirty countries.

He led surgical teams in the immediate aftermath of the earthquakes in Kashmir, Java, Haiti, the Philippines, during the desert conflict in Libya, in Ethiopia, and has worked as a war surgeon extensively in Lebanon and Gaza, including during the Palestinian Great March of Return. He has also worked with the World Health Organization, covering their Eastern Mediterranean Region, including Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan.

Richard has evacuated avalanche casualties from the North Face of Mount Everest, has run hearts and minds operations for Bedouin fighters and was fortunate to survive a near suicidal covert operation during the Falklands War.

He has written and lectured extensively about his activities and is an established member of the British Guild of Travel Writers. He has recounted his many experiences in the books, Knife Edge: Life as a Special Forces Surgeon, Winged Scalpel: A Surgeon at the Frontline of Disaster, and Never a Straight Line: Travels through Chile and Bolivia. He has also written for The Spectator, The Telegraph, the Evening Standard and The Independent.

Richard’s experiences in leadership, and the management of teams in high pressure, and often hazardous situations is huge. Much of what he has learned in regions of conflict and disaster is of immense value to the peacetime community.

“Fast paced, hard hitting but humorous, and very topical – with an excellent message about ‘teamship.’ We were hanging on his every word.”

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