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Prestigious President's Award for Trust Professor
Professor Wei Shen Lim, Consultant in Respiratory Medicine at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) and Honorary Professor of Medicine with the University of Nottingham, has been awarded The British Thoracic Society’s (BTS) President’s Award.
The BTS is the largest respiratory membership body in the UK. The society's President’s Award, presented for the first time in 2023, is awarded annually to an individual who has national or international standing, and has made a significant impact on clinical care in their chosen field of respiratory healthcare at any point during their career.
Professor Lim’s research interests include community acquired pneumonia, and influenza. Over the last twenty years, he has built an impressive research portfolio and publication record, whilst remaining a clinically active NHS physician.
He has has been a national lead in the field of respiratory infection over many years and has contributed to evidence-based improvements in the management of community acquired pneumonia, through his research and national roles. He was first author on the pivotal study that validated the prognostic utility of the simple CURB65 community acquired pneumonia (CAP) severity score in routine clinical practice. As former chair of the BTS CAP guidelines committee, and member of the Guideline Development Group for the NICE Pneumonia Guideline, he has helped to ensure this simple risk stratification tool has been embedded in best practice in the UK.
Professor Lim has chaired the joint British Thoracic Society, British Infection Society, Health Protection Agency and DoH Pandemic Influenza Clinical Management Guidelines Committee and sat on the CMO’s Pandemic Influenza Clinical and Operational (PICO) advisory group during the 2009-10 pandemic.
He has also been an active member of NERVTAG (New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group), which advises the government on the threat posed by new and emerging respiratory viruses. He co-led the evaluation of dexamethasone in the RECOVERY Trial during the Covid-19 pandemic and was co-first author on the ensuing manuscript. He was asked to chair the JCVI Covid-19 sub-committee, and tasked with rolling out mass vaccination against Covid-19, a key part of the pandemic response. In this role, he worked tirelessly to review evidence as it became available, advise the government, and help to achieve a rapid vaccination programme.
On receiving the award Professor Lim said "I am very honoured to be the first recipient of the BTS President's Award, this was completely unexpected."