Is Professor Crawley Retired from Bristol, or Isn’t She?

By David Tuller, DrPH Professor Esther Crawley, the methodically and ethically challenged pediatrician and former grant queen at the University of Bristol, retired from medical practice and, apparently, from academia at some point in the recent past. So why does her name still appear on websites as if she were an active participant in research and clinical care? I noted in a blog post earlier this month that Professor Crawley remains on the list of steering committee members of the Collaborative On Fatigue and related symptoms Following Infection, more commonly known as COFFI. (Is that acronym supposed to be a winking reference to “coffee,” which obviously is known to perk people up? If it is a pun, it’s a rather stupid one, but stupidity is not unknown among this crew.)  To try to find out why Professor Crawley’s name is still included, I sent a letter to COFFI and to the chair of its steering committee, Professor Vegard Wyller of Norway. I have not received a response. (I didn’t expect one.) Needless to say, an organization that fails in such basic functions as ensuring that its website accurately describes its current leadership, it is fair to question whether anything they proclaim can be taken seriously.  Furthermore, the other day a keen observer referred me to the website of a project called Severn Postgraduate Medical Education (SPME), which is the southwest England arm of a larger National Health Service training initiative. Under the SPME, the University of Bristol is offering two-year postgraduate posts in a range of specialties. On the project website, Professor Crawley is listed as one of the two leads for the pediatrics track, along with Professor Richard Coward, who is a Bristol faculty member.  The pediatrics department is offering three of these two-year training positions. Here’s the description: …

https://trialbyerror.org/2026/03/21/is-professor-crawley-retired-from-bristol-or-isnt-she/