Professor who took on Piers Morgan and advises on crisis

Miner’s son who grew up in Airdrie now has focus of nation upon him

From his scathing treatment of an apoplectic Piers Morgan to his explanation of how to flatten the coronavirus curve, Professor Jason Leitch has become an instantly recognisable figure in this crisis.

Delivering no-nonsense advice on radio and TV in his distinctive Lanarkshire accent, Professor Leitch has become something of a cult figure on social media.

But the 51-year-old miner’s son, who grew up in Airdrie, is more than just a Twitter phenomenon. He has emerged as one of the most gifted medical communicators of the coronavirus pandemic.

Behind the public face of Scotland’s national clinical director is a committed Christian who is a devoted helper in Indian orphanages, knows a bit about Scotland’s fish and chip shops and whose guilty pleasure is country music.

According to those close to him, the quick wit and formidable intellect that Morgan found himself on the receiving end of have been with him since childhood.

“You know, Jason hasn’t changed at all since he was a wee boy,” was how his father Jim put it when he turned to one of the medic’s friends at a church event.

Mr Leitch’s son had just delivered a typically forthright and amusing talk about his work with orphans in India.

Born into a Baptist, working-class family, he was always determined to make something of himself.

In an interview with the British Medical Journal (BMJ), he recalled a conversation he had with mother Irene.

“Mum remembers me asking at a very early age whether everyone had to be something. She said ‘yes’, and I replied, ‘Well, Dad isn’t anything...’ So, I wanted to be something,” he said.

As a youngster his verdict on his father was unduly harsh. Leitch Snr worked as a miner, electrical engineer and college lecturer. His mother was an office manager and together his parents helped instil his quiet faith at Airdrie Baptist Church.

The academic ability that was to take him to Harvard University was evident at Airdrie Academy, where he was dux.

He went on to Glasgow University to study dentistry, graduating in 1991. He worked as an oral surgeon for many years operating on cancer, wisdom teeth, dealing with road traffic accident trauma and sporting injuries.

He also had a spell teaching dentistry at Glasgow University.

One of his students was Anas Sarwar, who moved from dentistry to politics and is now Labour MSP for Glasgow. He taught me about extractions and he was a big a character then as he is now,” Mr Sarwar said.

The Labour MSP recalls that he had a cutting sense of humour, which he wasn’t afraid to deploy on his students, who regarded him as a formidable yet highly entertaining teacher.

When Mr Sarwar became Labour’s health spokesman he often dealt with his old teacher, who would joke that he was unsurprised at his former pupil’s career change because the politician was “not that good as a dentist”.

Then he would rub salt into the wound, by suggesting Mr Sarwar was “not much better at politics”.

Prof Leitch’s own career change resulted from a move to the United States where he took a master’s degree in public health at Harvard, which, as he has pointed out, is not something on Piers Morgan’s CV.

On the other side of the Atlantic he also did a fellowship year at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Boston in 2005.

When he returned home he worked for what has become the Scottish Patient Safety Programme at a challenging time after the C diff outbreak at the Vale of Leven hospital, which caused a number of deaths.

His early days in the new job were not without incident, he once gave the then first minister Alex Salmond the wrong mortality statistic before correcting it at an Edinburgh Castle evening reception.

His reputation as a safe pair of hands survived the mishap, and he eventually became the national clinical director of healthcare, quality and strategy before finding himself national clinical director of the whole system and a member of the senior team in charge of the Scottish NHS.

“He once gave the then first minister Alex Salmond the wrong mortality statistic before correcting it