James Calder (orthopaedic surgeon)

Calder was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2021 New Year Honours for services to sport and exercise.

In March 2020, Calder was appointed Clinical Lead setting up the NHS Nightingale Hospital London. Early in the pandemic, the quest to increase ventilator capacity in the NHS led to the concept of converting the Excel Exhibition Centre into a 4000 bed critical care facility. The co-ordination of NHS, military and private sector workers which enabled the hospital to open for patients within 10 days was rightly praised but few patients actually used the facility. The O2 Arena became a training centre for NHS staff across London to teach the skills required to work in critical care but whether the Nightingale would have been able to staff the hospital had it become fully operational remains in doubt. There are disagreements as to whether the £500M spent setting up the seven Nightingale Hospitals across England should have been used elsewhere or whether they were the ultimate insurance policy that were thankfully not needed. The King's Fund concluded "There were undeniably some positives from the Nightingale experience. Staff who worked in these locations speak of less hierarchical working styles and rapid learning and improvement systems (including the use of bedside learning co-ordinators)". These were then taken back to their home organisations for the benefit of the wider NHS.

In April 2020, Calder was appointed independent Chair of the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) committee tasked with returning elite sport during the COVID-19 pandemic. The "Five Stage Model" developed by sports chief medical officers, UK Sport and the sports National Governing Bodies enabled elite sport to re-commence in May 2020. Calder was also medical advisor on the DCMS Entertainment and Events and Broadcasting groups.

Calder was made a Fellow of the Faculty of Sports and Exercise Medicine, Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh in 2007 and in 2017 he was awarded a PhD by the University of Amsterdam. His thesis was titled "Advances in the Management of Ankle Injuries in Athletes".

Calder saw active military service in Northern Ireland, the Balkans and Middle East. He continued an interest in humanitarian aid through the Leonard Cheshire Centre for Conflict Relief and he worked in Sri Lanka following the tsunami in 2004 and subsequently assisted medical aid workers in the Pakistan earthquake of 2005.

Calder was appointed a consultant in trauma and orthopaedic surgery at the North Hampshire Hospital in 2003 and subsequently at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London. He is Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College, London where he leads the Sports Injury Research Group. He was appointed honorary consultant advisor in sports to UK Health Security Agency in 2020.

After attending The Leys School in Cambridge, Calder graduated from the London Hospital Medical College in 1991 and awarded FRCSEng in 1995. He was awarded the Laming Evans Research Fellowship from the Royal College of Surgeons in England studying the histochemical effects of avascular necrosis and awarded a Doctorate of Medicine from London University in 2001 and FRCS(Tr & Orth) the same year. He continued his training in Australia with a foot and ankle fellowship for a year and subsequently in the USA following the award of a travelling Fellowship from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

James David Forbes Calder OBE TD (born 22 February 1968) is a British orthopaedic surgeon specialising in sporting injuries. He has built a reputation for treating foot and ankle injuries in top international athletes - soccer players from the English Premier League and European clubs including Paris St Germain, AC Milan, Barcelona FC, Real Madrid, Olympique de Marseille FC in addition to rugby players from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, GB Olympic teams, England and Indian cricket teams and UK Athletics.