Professor Alistair McNarry

Consultant Anaesthetist, Edinburgh UK

President of the Difficult Airway Society (DAS) [2025- present]

Areas of Interest: Airway Management including but not limited to Apnoeic Oxygenation, Awake Tracheal Intubation, Videolaryngoscopy, Supraglottic Airways and Human Factors and although he finds every part of these aspects of management fascinating, his overwhelming interest is in improving the safe airway management of the patients under his care.

Alistair McNarry has been a Consultant Anaesthetist in Edinburgh since March 2006 where he regularly provides anaesthesia for patients undergoing head and neck surgery. Having initially graduated from Cambridge University, he went on to undertake anaesthetic training in the East of England before moving to London where he worked as a Registrar and also as an Airway Fellow at St Bartholomew’s Hospital.

He was appointed as in inaugural National Airway Lead (a joint position between the Royal College of Anaesthetists and the Difficult Airway Society) in 2016 and served for seven years
ensuring dissemination of good practice in airway management across the UK. He is delighted that the Airway Leads concept has now spread to other countries around the world with the primary aim of making airway management safer. He was awarded the Royal College of Anaesthetists Medal for his work in this field.

He was awarded a DAS Professorship in 2024.

He has contributed to 5 sets of Guidelines, including 4 for the Difficult Airway Society. He has written and co-authored several manuscripts and contributed several book chapters.

Outside of the OR he has lectured from San Diego to Mumbai, including an online lecture during the pandemic to 48,000 people.
He reviews for several journals and is an Associate Editor for the European Journal of Anaesthesia.

He has been the abstract coordinator for the three WAMM meetings held to date and reports that abstract presentations will always be the best part of any meeting

In his spare time he enjoys playing the organ.

He is very much looking forward to this opportunity to return to Malaysia and looks forward to meeting friends old and new.