From The Daily Mail (source link): The elite medical team that oversaw the Duchess of Cambridge’s first pregnancy will once again be by her side.
The Queen’s current surgeon-gynaecologist Alan Farthing is expected to lead the team, accompanied by obstetrician Guy Thorpe-Beeston, a specialist in high-risk pregnancies.
Unlike last time, however, there will be no Marcus Setchell, who led the delivery of Prince George.
Sir Marcus, royal surgeon-gynaecologist for 18 years, delayed his retirement until the royal birth at the Lindo Wing of St Mary’s Hospital on July 22, 2013.
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He went on to be made a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Orders (KCVO) – an honour given as the personal gift of the Queen.
Consultant Mr Farthing, 51, is the former fiancé of murdered television presenter Jill Dando.
When he took on his role for the royal household in 2008, he became one of the youngest doctors to treat the royal family.
After qualifying as a doctor in 1986 from St George’s Hospital Medical School, London, he became a member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1991, and a fellow in 2003.
In 1997, he became a consultant gynaecologist at St Mary’s Hospital and an honorary senior lecturer at Imperial College, London. He is a specialist in gynaecological cancer care and an internationally recognised expert in keyhole surgery.
He later went on to open his own private Harley Street practice and works as a consultant at two teaching hospitals in London, Queen Charlotte’s in Shepherd’s Bush and St Mary’s in Paddington – where father-to-be the Duke of Cambridge was born in 1982.
Mr Farthing was engaged to Crimewatch presenter Miss Dando, 37, when she was murdered in 1999, five months before they were due to marry.
The couple met at a dinner party in 1997 and announced their engagement in 1999.
Miss Dando was shot dead on her doorstep in April that year.
In 2008, he married Dr Janet Stowell, whom he met in 2003 when she was a young house doctor at St Mary’s, Paddington.
They live in St John’s Wood, London in a detached £3 million house, and have a four-year-old son. Obstetrician Mr Thorpe-Beeston works at London’s private Portland Hospital and on Harley Street having amassed 18 years’ experience as a consultant. The doctor, who says he like to ‘keep things simple’ by ‘offering honest advice’, specialises in pre-natal diagnosis, deliveries and ultrasound.
He graduated from Cambridge University in 1984 worked at King’s College Hospital, London, becoming a consultant in foetal medicine in 1996 at Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust.
Prince William and his brother Harry were delivered by Sir Marcus’ predecessor, the late Sir George Pinker, who delivered nine royal babies between 1973 and 1990.
Sir Marcus delivered both of the Countess of Wessex’s children, Lady Louise, nine, and James, Viscount Severn, four.
The countess collapsed and was close to death when Lady Louise was born prematurely in 2003, after the placenta ruptured the lining of the womb.
Mr Setchell also led the medical care following Sophie’s ectopic pregnancy in 2001 and performed the Duchess of Cornwall’s hysterectomy in 2007.
