About Alexis
Dr Alexis Paton is a nationally recognised academic, writer and media commentator and expert on health, healthcare and medical ethics. She is author of the book, Understanding Health, Illness and Society: A Patient-Centred Approach to Care (Routledge 2025), and writes regularly for The Independent.
She co-hosts the Sick Society podcast with Sir Andrew Goddard, where every episode they speak to an expert about all the weird and wonderful ways the world around us influences our health.
She also creates content about the relationship between health and society for her YouTube and Tik Tok channels: @dralexispaton.
All her social media content can be found across platforms on the handle: @dralexispaton
Alexis the Writer
Beyond academic and mainstream media writing, she is an active creative writer. She is currently working on a Teen/YA novel with her eldest daughter, all about dragons. They are enjoying working and writing together and hope to debut their novel to the world in late 2027! Watch this space for more information or get in touch if you think this is a good fit your list.
Alexis the Academic
As an academic, she studies how people make decisions about health: whether they be patients, healthcare professionals or policymakers. Her work examines how society shapes health, with a special focus on the role that social inequalities and ethical issues play in influencing people’s experiences of medicine.
She is Director of the Centre for Health and Society at Aston University, where she is also a Senior Lecturer in the Sociology of Health, Programme Director of the MPH Online and Curriculum Lead the Social and Psychological Aspects of Health for Aston Medical School.
Well versed in the political side of health and medicine, she is in her second term as Chair of the Committee on Ethical Issues in Medicine at the Royal College of Physicians and as a Trustee of the Institute of Medical Ethics.
Alexis in the Media
She has appeared on BBC and ITV television, BBC radio, Times Radio and talkRADIO, and in national newspapers including The Independent, The Sunday Times and The Guardian.
She was most recently in the BBC documentary. Disease X: Hunting the next pandemic, speaking to Dr Chris Van Tulleken about how people make decisions about risks to their health. You can watch it on iPlayer here: