COUNCIL MEMBER PROFILES

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL
PRESIDENT	PROFESSOR KG BURNAND is Professor of Vascular Surgery and Director of the Academic Department of Surgery of King’s College London School of Medicine at St Thomas’ Hospital. Educated at Clifton College, Bristol, and St Thomas’ Hospital Medical School, London, Professor Burnand's further surgical training was at the Royal Marsden Hospital and Salisbury General Hospital, before returning to St Thomas' as registrar and senior registrar. During these 8 years, one year was spent in research with Sir Norman Browse and he later joined him in the Academic Department of Surgery at Guy's & St Thomas’ NHS Trust, first as senior lecturer, then reader and finally as full Professor, being appointed Chairman in 1992. He also became Chairman of the Division of Surgery and Anaesthesia of King's College in 1997. Professor Burnand has written four books and over 180 papers on arterial venous and lymphatic disease in peer reviewed journals. He has a continuing interest in unstable carotid plaque, the aetiology of aortic aneurysms, venous ulcers and venous thrombosis. He was President of the Vascular Society of Great Britain & Ireland 2002-03, and has carried out many visiting Professorships, the most recent at Massachusetts General Hospital/Johns Hopkins Hospital 2007.
PRESIDENT-ELECT	PROFESSOR NS WILLIAMS is the Professor and Director of the Centre for Academic Surgery at Barts and The London, Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry, from where he originally qualified. His early surgical and academic training was in London and Bristol, before moving to Leeds General Infirmary as a Research Fellow, and subsequently Lecturer and Senior Lecturer. He is a colorectal surgeon and his main clinical interests are sphincter preservation, reconstructive surgery and functional bowel disorders and his scientific interests are now concentrated on neurogastroenterology. During his Lecturer years, he went as a Fullbright Scholar to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and gained particular expertise in gastrointestinal motility. He has won the Patey Prize of the Surgical Research Society, the Moynihan Fellowship of the Association of Surgeons and the BUPA Society of Authors' Prize (Jointly) for the textbook "Surgery of the Anus, Rectum and Colon". He was awarded the Nessim Habif Prize for Surgery in 1995 and the Galen Medal in Therapeutics in recognition of the advances made in colorectal surgery in 2002. He was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2004. He has been President of European Digestive Surgery, Vice-Chairman of the Editorial Board of the British Journal of Surgery, Chairman of the UKCCCR Committee on Colorectal Cancer, and a member of the National Cancer Research Network Steering Group. He is President of the Ileostomy and Internal Pouch Support Group of Great Britain, President of The International Surgical Group (2006-7) and elected member of the Council of The Royal College of Surgeons of England (2005-11) and is now Chairman of its Academic and Research Board.
HONORARY SECRETARY	PROFESSOR ADK HILL is Professor of Surgery and Chairman of the Department of Surgery at The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and at Beaumont Hospital, Dublin. He graduated from University College Dublin. He did his basic surgical training in Dublin and his middle grade surgical training in London. He did a two year basic research fellowship with Dr John Daly at The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and The New York Hospital / Cornell Medical Center in the United States. He returned to Ireland to do his Senior Registrar training on the National Training Programme in Ireland. He also did a clinical fellowship in Surgical Oncolgy at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York prior to taking up his first consultant appointment at St Vincent’s University Hospital in Dublin. His clinical interests are in the area of breast cancer and melanoma. His laboratory research interests are in the transcriptional control of breast cancer in particular the role of the coregulatory proteins in endocrine resistance. In January 2006, Professor Hill took up Chair of Surgery at The Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland and transferred his clinical practice to Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, the principle teaching hospital of the RCS Ireland.
HONORARY TREASURER	MR D BAKER read medicine at Oriel College, Oxford and trained in surgery in Nottingham and London. He gained his PhD from the University of Wales. He is presently a Consultant Vascular Surgeon in the Department of Surgery at the Royal Free Hospital and Honorary Senior Lecturer in surgery at the Royal Free and University College London Medical School. His research focusses on the effects of ischaemia on skeletal muscle. He is the hospital unit training director for surgery and plays a lead rold in implementing the foundation year training in general surgery within the hospital.
EDITORIAL SECRETARY	MR MG WYATT graduated from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1982. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1987 and was awarded an MD by the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1993. He trained in surgery at Bristol, Plymouth, Exeter and St. Mary's, Paddington and was appointed as a Consultant in Vascular Surgery at the Freeman Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne in 1994. Mr Wyatt was awarded a Hunterian Professorship by the Royal College of Surgeons in 1992, and a Personal Readership in Arterial Surgery by the Univeristy of Newcastle upon Tyne in 2005. He writes and lectures extensively on the subject of vascular surgery, is an assessor and examiner for the Intercollegiate MRCS and Chairman of the Endovascular Forum and a member of the Specialist Advisory Committee in General Surgery. Mr Wyatt continues to pursue both laboratory and clinically based research into vascular surgery, his primary interest involving aortic aneurysm and endovascular surgery.
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COMMITTEE CHAIRS
PROGRAMME	PROFESSOR G CARLSON is Head of the Infection, Injury and Inflammation Research Group at Hope Hospital, Salford. Following training in Manchester and Newcastle upon Tyne, he was awarded the Association of Surgeons Medal in 1996, after which he took up an MRC Senior Clinical Fellowship in the MRC Trauma Group, subsequently moving into an NHS post. His research interests are in the field of sepsis, nutrition and metabolism, and, with his colleagues, he runs one of the two National Intestinal Failure Centres. His academic and clinical work in the field of surgical nutrition and metabolism have been recognised by the Sir David Cuthbertson Medal, a Hunterian Professorship, a James IVth travelling fellowship, the Bengt Ihre medal of the Swedish Medical Society and the medal of honour of the Danish surgical society. He is visiting Professor at the Karolinska Institute and the University of Linkoping, Sweden.
MEMBERSHIP	PROFESSOR NJ CHESHIRE is Professor of Vascular Surgery at Imperial College, London and Associate Medical Director at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington. He has clinical and research interests in new technologies for the treatment of vascular disease. Active thoracic and thoraco-abdominal aortic stenting programmes - including the hybrid visceral revascularisation procedure - are currently being studied along with carotid stenting, emergency AAA stenting, sub-intimal angioplasty and EVLT. Other research interests include flow mechanical influences on graft and stent outcomes (which won the Young Researcher award at the European Society of Vascular & Endovascular Surgery meeting 2004), carotid plaque biological features associated with embolisation during angioplasty (winner of the ISES research prize at the 2004 Arizona meeting) and endovascular skills acquisition by surgeons. Professor Cheshire was previously the national Vascular Skills Tutor at the Royal College of Surgeons of England and has been awarded both the Hunterian Professorship and Moynihan Travelling Fellowships by the College. He is associate editor of the journal 'Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England' and vascular speciality editor of the journal 'Surgery'.
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COMMITTEE MEMBERS
COUNCIL MEMBER	MR FCT SMITH is Consultant Senior Lecturer in Vascular Surgery at the University of Bristol and Bristol Royal Infirmary. After graduating from Birmingham University in 1984, he trained in Edinburgh, the West Midlands, Exeter and Bristol. He was awarded Peter Clifford and RCS Edinburgh Travelling Fellowships in 1996, undertaking further vascular training in Boston, Denver, Los Angeles and Seattle. Research interests have encompassed systemic effects of reperfusion injury in aortic aneurysm surgery, in distal bypass surgery and in intermittent claudication and the pathology and attenuation of myointimal hyperplasia. He has specific interests in medical education. He has been an elected member of Council and of the Education & Training Committee of the Vascular Society of GB & Ireland and is regional representative for the SW on the Council of ASGBI. He is currently Intercollegiate Basic Surgical Skills Course Tutor at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, assessor and examiner for the Intercollegiate MRCS and examiner for the European Boards of Vascular Surgery.
COUNCIL MEMBER	PROFESSOR DION MORTON is the Professor of Colorectal Surgery in the Academic Department of Surgery at the University of Birmingham. He is a Colorectal Surgeon and his main clinical interests are in colorectal cancer treatment and prevention and the surgical treatment of inflammatory bowel disease. His early research interests were in the field of inherited colorectal cancer. This more recent research interest has also encompassed chemo prevention of sporadic colorectal cancer and the molecular biology of early colorectal tumorigenesis. He is currently leading a number of national and international trials in the field of colorectal cancer. He is a member of the NCRI coloretal clinical subgroup, and is the Chairman of the Surgical Subcommittee. He is currently a member of the Feasiblity and Study Committee for Cancer Research UK.
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COUNCIL MEMBER	PROFESSOR P RONAN O'CONNELL MD, FRCSI, FRCS (Glas) is Professor of Surgery at University College Dublin and formally Consultant Senior Lecturer at the London Hospital and later Consultant Surgeon at the Mater Hospital, Dublin. He is a fellow of ACPGBI, ASCRS and ASGBI. He is secretary elect of ESCP. He is an elected member of the Society of Pelvic Surgeons, the ESA and ISG. A former winner of the Patey Prize (1985), Professor O'Connell has published widely in the areas of inflammatory bowel disease, pelvic floor physiology and continence. He has been an editor of BJS (1999 -2006) and DCR (since 2001).
COUNCIL MEMBER	MR ROBERT D SAYERS is a Reader in Vascular Surgery at the University of Leicester. He qualified with Honours from the University of Birmingham in 1984 but did most of his vascular training as a Lecturer in Surgery in Leicester and Adelaide, South Australia. His research interests include clinical studies into endovascular aneurysm repair and basic science research investigating the genetic factors that lead to pathogenesis and expansion of aneurysms. He is a founding member of the recently formed AAA consortium that has attracted £1 million funding from The Wellcome Trust for a genome wide association study into the causes of aortic aneurysms.
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COUNCIL MEMBER	MR R VOHRA is a Consultant Vascular Surgeon at the Selly Oak Hospital, University Hospital Birmingham Foundation NHS Trust. He also holds the post of Associated Divisional Director for the Outpatients for the Trust. His clinical interests include carotid surgery, femoro-distal reconstructions and vascular surgical training. Research interests encompass the role of hydroxyethyl starches in reperfusion injury during AAA surgery, haemostasis (fibrin sealants) in vascular surgery, prediction of stroke in patients with asymptomatic carotid stenosis and the role of activated neutrophrils in a model of reverse endothelial migration in reperfusion injuries. He has held the post of in-charge of Basic Surgical Skills Courses in India on behalf of The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He has organised 10 femoro-distal reconstruction courses attracting 77 vascular trainees and consultants. He has been an elected member of Vascular Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 2005-07. He is currently Chairperson of the South Birmingham Research and Ethics Committee, an Intercollegiate MRCS Examiner, Intercollegiate FRCS (Exit) Examiner, on the Editorial Board of European Journal of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery and a member of Circulation Foundation. He has represented Vascular Society as a Specialist Advisor to NICE and as a stakeholder for "National Library of Health". He has been awarded honorary fellowships from the Vascular Society of India and Egyptian Society of Vascular Surgery.
NON-CLINICAL SCIENTIST	DR M LOIZIDOU is a non-clinical Senior Lecturer in the Department of Surgery, Royal Free and University College Medical School , UCL. Previously she worked in the Academic Department of Surgery, Southampton University . She trained as a biochemist and a pharmacologist first in Canada and later in the UK . She has been involved in academic surgical training throughout her career. She has supervised more than 20 postgraduate surgeons working towards higher research degrees and has contributed extensively to the design and ongoing delivery of the MSc in Surgical Science at UCL. Her research programme focuses on aspects of colorectal cancer and liver metastases, from the basic underlying biology to new potential treatments. Additional research areas include breast and bladder cancer. She is assistant Editor for colorectal cancer for Oncology News. Top
SURGEON-IN-TRAINING	MR PF RIDGWAY is a Higher Surgical Trainee on the National Training Programme in Ireland. He graduated from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and completed his Basic Surgical Training in Dublin. At the same time he completed a Masters in Medical Science (NUI). He was awarded his MD from Imperial College London (St. Mary’s Campus) in 2002 after a two-year Clinical Research Fellowship in Paddington. His research interests include iatrogenic and de novo hypoxic modulation of solid tumour protease systems, surgical technology in education and elearning. His clinical interest centres on minimally invasive therapy in gastrointestinal oncology. Top