{"id":250305,"date":"2025-07-09T08:46:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T08:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/250305\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T08:46:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T08:46:09","slug":"the-hospital-consultant-running-as-a-dolphin-to-save-the-ocean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/250305\/","title":{"rendered":"The hospital consultant running as a dolphin to save the ocean"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n HOSPITAL consultant, passionate environmental campaigner, and dad-of-two, Richard Hixson is a man on a mission \u2013 and he\u2019s prepared to run around as a dolphin to make himself heard.\n<\/p>\n

\n Without wishing to trivialize the importance of his message, it might even be said he has a strong sense of porpoise.\n<\/p>\n

\n Since the start of the year, Richard has taken part in 15 North East parkruns, dressed in a dolphin costume, to spread the word that we depend on the ocean \u2013 and it\u2019s in decline.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s a fun way of starting conversations based on one question that people always tend to ask: \u2018Why are you dressed as a dolphin?\u2019\u201d says Richard.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI\u2019m not asking for anything from them, just trying to inspire a greater understanding of how much we need the ocean and, ultimately, hoping it leads to actions.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n This is a man who has a busy enough job, as Consultant in Anaesthesia and Critical Care at Darlington Memorial Hospital.\n<\/p>\n

\n But Richard is much more than that. He\u2019s a man who\u2019s just come back from swimming with whale sharks in Australia, and he\u2019s busy developing a not-for-profit business aimed at helping health care professionals to access education and training linked to saving the planet.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n And yet, on Saturday, there he was again, making a splash in his blue and white dolphin outfit, while happily taking part in the Darlington parkrun.\n<\/p>\n

\n On the way round the picturesque five-kilometre course, there were plenty of high-fives for well-wishers \u2013 especially children \u2013 and the inevitable question rose to the surface more than once: \u201cEr, why are you dressed as a dolphin?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Indeed, two children, running with their dad, were locked in a deep debate as they embarked on their second lap.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s definitely a shark \u2013 a whale shark probably!\u201d argued Albert, aged 6.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cNo, no, no \u2013 it\u2019s a dolphin!\u201d insisted his little sister, three-year-old Ebby, from the comfort of her pushchair.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWhale shark! Whale shark!\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cDolphin! Dolphin!\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe\u2019ll ask him at the finish,\u201d interjected their dad while gasping for breath at the top of an incline.\n<\/p>\n

\n For Richard \u2013 forever quick to point out to anyone who\u2019ll listen that one in every two breaths we take comes from the ocean \u2013 it\u2019s all about making connections and starting conversations.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI realised that if I was going to get the message out there to a wider audience, I had to find different ways of doing it \u2013 so I went on eBay, bought a dolphin costume, and started running.”\n<\/p>\n

\n Originally from Hertfordshire and now living in Northallerton<\/a>, Richard has been a hospital consultant in Darlington since 2001.\n<\/p>\n

\n Due to his passion for the environment, he\u2019s been made Sustainability Lead for the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, and is part of NHS England Sustainable Procurement Forum.\n<\/p>\n

\n Other roles include a hot off the press appointment as Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Exeter.\n<\/p>\n

\n In 2020, shortly before Covid-19, he was moved to launch CPDmatch, a not-for-profit business aimed at making it easier for healthcare staff to access continuing professional development training, either online or close to home, to save them having to travel long distances.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI kept hearing about colleagues who were flying around the world to undertake education because they simply weren\u2019t aware of the courses that were available on their doorstep,\u201d he explains.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe premise of CPDmatch was to have a one-stop hub where colleagues could access information about what was on their doorstep or online \u2013 thereby improving educational opportunities while being more environmentally-friendly.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Within six weeks of the launch, the pandemic struck, so Richard used CPDmatch as a platform for all the training information he could find relating to Covid-19.\n<\/p>\n

\n At the time, he wanted his idea to be an all-encompassing portal but, having realised that was overly ambitious without much bigger resources, the focus is now on his own personal passion for sustainability.\n<\/p>\n

\n Indeed, CPDmatch is the latest business to sign up to the pioneering Darlington<\/a> Employers\u2019 Environmental Partnership (DEEP), an initiative aimed at sharing experience and good practice around the net zero agenda.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cCPDmatch is there to help all those in the healthcare value chain,\u201d says Richard. \u201cFrom the professionals at the coalface, to the 80,000 suppliers within the NHS, we want to be the place where they find what they need on environmental education without having to travel by train or plane.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Richard\u2019s passion for the environment started as a child when he collected wildlife cards through a kids’ magazine. His most prized card and, therefore, his favourite animal was the Yangtze river dolphin.\n<\/p>\n

\n In 2017, he decided to find out how the Yangtze river dolphin was doing and was “devastated” to discover it was extinct.\n<\/p>\n

\n “That really hit me,” he recalls. “It underlined the urgency of the situation, and that’s when I started asking questions at the hospital trust about sustainability.”\n<\/p>\n

\n It’s a passion which inspires him at work and in his private life, with family holidays tending to be more like environmental expeditions.\n<\/p>\n

\n He’s already swum with sharks and, in May, he achieved a lifetime ambition by snorkelling amongst whale sharks at Ningaloo Reef, in Australia’s Coral Bay.\n<\/p>\n

\n (Image: Richard Hixson) (Image: Richard Hixson) (Image: Richard Hixson) The largest fish in the ocean, whale sharks can measure\u00a0 more than 40 feet.\n<\/p>\n

\n “Swimming with them was unforgettable \u2013 I just cried when it happened,” admits Richard. “They are the most beautiful, majestic creatures I’ve ever seen \u2013 just living their lives, unperturbed.”\n<\/p>\n

\n It was an experience that reinforced Richard’s determination to do his bit to increase understanding of how much humans depend on the ocean, and that it is in grave danger.\n<\/p>\n

\n “We are so reliant on the ocean \u2013 for our oxygen, food, global supply chains, medicines, and renewable energy,” he explains.\n<\/p>\n

\n “Ninety per cent of internet traffic goes beneath the ocean, and the chances are that when we buy something online it will come via container ships.\n<\/p>\n

\n “Every time we use a sink, a drain or a toilet, we are connected to the ocean. We need it, so we all have to play our part in protecting it.”\n<\/p>\n

\n If that includes doing your personal best to raise awareness by running round as a dolphin, while also making people smile, well that’s just flipping brilliant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOSPITAL consultant, passionate environmental campaigner, and dad-of-two, Richard Hixson is a man on a mission \u2013 and he\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[105,4348,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-250305","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114822406627749318","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}