Dr Alan Forster was a consultant clinical neurophysiologist based at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary until 2015 when he "retired" but continues to be involved in IOM.
Qualified from Aberdeen University then trained at Queen Square when Nick Murray and Robin Willison were consultants. Appointed as a consultant clinical neurophysiologist aged 30 at Dundee from 1987-2000. In Dundee, he got involved with IOM from 1993 working closely with a neurosurgeon, Mr Varma initially for facial and auditory nerve monitoring in trigeminal neuralgia, hemifacial spasm and acoustic neuromas. They made their own electrodes for corticography. One friday afternoon a phone call from Mr Varma resulted from more work than any other call he ever had "Alan, if I put a needle in the thalamus, can you tell me where the end is?". This led to pallidal and subthalamic nucleus stimulation for movement disorders. From 2000-2005 he moved to Liverpool to continue working with Mr Varma but then returned to Aberdeen to develop a wide ranging IOM service as well as supporting and training Dr Mallik and Dr Yaacob in Glasgow to help the development of a national service for movement disorder surgery in Scotland.
