Sally Collins

Sally L. Collins BSc BMBCh DPhil FRCOG is a Professor of Obstetrics in the Nuffield Department of Women’s and Reproductive Health, University of Oxford and a Consultant Obstetrician subspecializing in Feto-Maternal Medicine at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford.

She is also a lecturer in Medical Sciences at St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford.

Collins was educated at Beresford House School for Girls in Eastbourne was an undergraduate at the University of East Anglia, Norwich where she was awarded a BSc (Hons) in Chemistry in 1990.

She then went on to Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London where she completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Theatre Arts.

Collins was formerly a researcher in the Oxford Pain Research Unit, Nuffield Department of Anaesthetics, University of Oxford (1996-1999) and a professional actress (1990-1996).

She is the lead author of Oxford Handbook of Obstetrics and Gynecology (2nd, 3rd & 4th Editions) and co-wrote Obstetric Medicine, one of the first books in the Oxford Specialist Handbooks in Obstetrics and Gynaecology series for which she is Series Editor.

In 1996 she left acting and joined the team at the Pain Research Unit, Nuffield Department of Anaesthetics, University of Oxford.

Here she developed several practical methods to enable the meta-analysis of pain studies most notably a tool which allows comparison between a visual analogue pain scale and categorical pain scores.

During this time she published numerous Cochrane Reviews of a variety of analgesics and significantly contributed to the Oxford Ladder of Analgesic Efficacy.

Collins studied preclinical medicine at St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford where she was awarded a distinction in her 1st BM and the 1999 Nuffield Prize for Medicine.

She went on to study Clinical Medicine at Green Templeton College, University of Oxford where she was awarded a Baber Studentship and the Hobson Mann Clinical Medicine Scholarship.

She graduated from the Oxford University Clinical Medical School in 2002 with a BMBCh.

Collins was the Clinical Lead for Obstetrics for AirBorn, the UK’s first perinatal air ambulance service (2011-2016).

Through this role, she became the repatriation advisor to the British military.

During her time in these roles she organised, and often personally flew on, numerous missions to repatriate peripartum British citizens and British military personnel from destinations including Kazakhstan and Camp Bastion.

Collins trained in Obstetrics and gynaecology in the Thames Valley Deanery during which time she completed a Doctor of Philosophy degree (D.Phil.) in 2012 at the University of Oxford.

Her thesis examined automated ultrasound imaging of the placenta and was supervised by Alison Noble and Lawrence Impey.

She completed her Sub-Specialist Training in Maternal-Fetal Medicine in 2013.

On graduating from Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts Collins started her career as a professional actress appearing in several stage productions as well as Thames Television’s series ‘The Bill’ and a BBC 999 Lifesaver’s special.

Collins joined The Fetal Medicine Unit, John Radcliffe Hospital in 2014 as a Consultant Obstetrician and Sub-Specialist in fetal medicine.

She is the Obstetric lead for the Oxford Placenta Accreta Team (OxPAT) and set up the FMU Placenta Clinic which offers diagnosis and management of Placenta Accreta Spectrum (PAS) to the Thames Valley and beyond.

She has been working with NHS England since 2016 to develop a nationwide network of specialist centres for the management of PAS to improve diagnosis and management of this rare and life-threatening condition.

She has also authored several national and international guidelines on the diagnosis and management of PAS for the RCOG, FIGO and the IS-AIP (formerly EW-AIP).

She was promoted to Professor of Obstetrics at the University of Oxford in 2022.

In 2017, she joined St Anne’s College, University of Oxford as a Lecturer in Medical Sciences.

She became Medical Lead for Women’s Health at Perspectum Diagnostics in 2020.

Collins is a member of the international editorial board of Placenta, having previously been on the editorial boards of Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica and BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth.

She is the elected Vice Chair of the International Society for PAS (IS-PAS).

Whilst working at the Pain Research Unit, Nuffield department of Anaesthetics, University of Oxford, Collins developed several practical Evidence Medicine tools which enable the meta-analysis of pain studies and provided the pioneering research for the Oxford Ladder of Analgesic efficacy.

She is the author of several Cochrane reviews including the review of sterile water for back pain in labour.

This led to her being the UK PI for ICARIS a multicentre, randomised controlled trial which finally demonstrated the analgesic efficacy of intracutaneous sterile water for back pain in labour.

Collins has collaborated with Gordon N. Stevenson in the field of image analysis since her D.Phil.

and they have multiple publications together, notably in 3D power Doppler ultrasound (3D-PD US) methodology and application to placental imaging.

Her work with Kypros Nicolaides of the Fetal Medicine Foundation led to the development of the original fully convolutional neural network (OxNNet) which can automatically segment the placenta from a 3D ultrasound volume.

Collins and her team have developed several fully automated tools (OxNNet Toolkit) for assessment of first trimester placental morphology and vascularity with the ultimate aim of developing a multifactorial risk prediction model for fetal growth restriction and pre-eclampsia later in pregnancy.

The work of Collins, Stevenson and Alec (William) Welsh on power Doppler (PD) ultrasound has led to the development of the first standardised technique for quantitative estimation of perfusion in 3D which has now been validated in an animal model.

She has also published on computational modelling of the placenta, working with a Mathematics in Medicine collaboration between the University of Oxford and University of Manchester to develop a stochastic model for early placental development.

Her recent study modelling placental vascularity with Alys Clark and Joanne James at the University of Auckland, challenges the dogma regarding the origin of the changes seen in the uterine artery waveform, proposing a new mechanism for the underlying pathology.

Collins’ has also conducted research into diagnosis and management of placenta accreta spectrum (PAS).

Her work with the International Society for Placenta Accreta Spectrum (IS-PAS) includes producing standardised definitions for ultrasound and MRI markers and the only evidence-based guideline for intra-partum management.