Dr Simon Mitchell

Simon Mitchell is an anaesthesiologist practicing at Auckland City Hospital and a diving physician providing on-call diving cover to New Zealand's national diving emergency medical centre at Auckland. He is Professor and Head of the Department of Anaesthesiology at the School of Medicine, University of Auckland. He has over 130 publications in diving medicine, anaesthesiology, and the related area of patient safety in the operating room. He serves on the Editorial Boards of 4 scientific journals and holds numerous service and executive roles in external academic societies. He has been a lifelong passionate diver and was a lead member of teams that were the first to locate, dive and identify 3 deep shipwrecks of high historical significance in Australia and New Zealand. At the time of one of these dives it was the deepest (180m - 600’) ever undertaken to a wreck. His contributions to exploration and the science of diving were recognised by election to Fellowship of the Explorers’ Club of New York in 2006 and receipt of the DAN / Rolex Diver of the Year Award in 2015