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Mr Millner graduated with Honours in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Leeds in 1984. He completed both basic and higher surgical training in Yorkshire, obtaining Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1988 and the Intercollegiate Specialty Fellowship in Orthopaedic Surgery in 1994. He was the inaugural United Kingdom ‘National Spine Fellow’ based at the departments of Neurosurgery and Academic Orthopaedic Surgery in Leeds and Wakefield. He completed fellowships in trauma and spinal surgery at the University Hospital of Geneva, Switzerland and at the Klinikum Karlsbad-Langensteinbach, Germany.

He was appointed as Senior Lecturer at the University of Leeds and Honorary Consultant in Spinal Surgery at the Academic Unit of Orthopaedic Surgery at St James's University Hospital, Leeds in 1995. In 2001, he left his academic post and became a full-time NHS Consultant specialising in complex paediatric and adult spinal surgery, based at St James's University Hospital. In 2006, because of reconfiguration of trauma services in Yorkshire, he oversaw the move of the orthopaedic spinal department to merge with the neurosurgical spinal department in a new Integrated Spinal Surgery Unit based at Leeds General Infirmary. He was the Lead Clinician of this unit from its inception until 2011. His genuine support for colleagues and trainees fostered a strong culture of shared learning and teamwork and laid the foundations for the success of the National Spine Fellowship.

Mr Millner’s leadership and professionalism also helped shape spinal surgery delivery at a national level. He served as President of the British Scoliosis Society (BSS) from 2020 to 2021 and throughout his career held a variety of executive roles in the BSS, UK Spine Societies' Board (UKSSB), and the British Scoliosis Research Foundation (BSRF). In addition to his clinical workload, he ran an expert medicolegal practice and maintained a strong academic relationship with the Leeds Biomedical Musculoskeletal Research Unit (LMBRU) and the School of Medicine, at the University of Leeds. He retired from clinical practice in April 2021.

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John L. Cruickshank is a former orthopaedic surgeon born in Liverpool, whose PhD thesis examined the early-modern social and economic history of a Yorkshire township within the interface zone between a growing commercial town and its agricultural and industrial surroundings. He has published extensively on the cartographic history of Britain, Central and Eastern Europe. His recent publications have been on the legal and administrative history of the West Riding between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries, and on Soviet maps. His present research is focussed on the West Riding woollen textile industry in the pre-industrial period.

Professor Dickson was educated at the Edinburgh Academy and the University of Edinburgh, qualifying in Medicine in 1967.  He completed his surgical house jobs in Edinburgh, working for Professor ‘JIP’ James.   He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1972 and was awarded the degree of Master of Surgery by the University of Edinburgh in 1973 for his thesis concerning the assessment of the rheumatoid hand.   He then moved to Oxford, where he worked with Professor Robert Duthie and converted from hand surgery to spinal surgery by working as a spinal fellow for Ken Leatherman in Louisville, Kentucky. During this time he also worked as a visiting surgeon assisting the earthquake victims in Venezuela.

He was appointed Reader in Orthopaedic Surgery at Oxford with the clinical duties of a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon and then was appointed as the Foundation Chair of Orthopaedic Surgery in Leeds.  His research into spinal deformity translated into tangible patient benefits:  the surgical management of idiopathic scoliosis by the eponymous “Leeds procedure” was published in the British Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery in 1987. His academic prowess was recognised by most awards available to Orthopaedic Surgeons including the Moynihan Prize of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, the Hunterian Professorship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1984, the Jacksonian Prize from the English college in 1990 and the Robert Jones Medal from the British Orthopaedic Association in 2002.  

He is the founder editor of Orthopaedics and Trauma and served on the editorial board of the British Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. During his career he authored numerous textbooks and chapters on spinal surgery and trained a generation of spinal surgeons who have gone on to practice around the globe.