Sir Neil James McCready Mortensen FRCS is Emeritus Professor of Colorectal Surgery at the University of Oxford Medical School and has been on the staff of the Oxford University Hospitals since 1987, where he is currently honorary consultant colorectal surgeon. He is a Fellow of Green Templeton College in the University of Oxford. Following his appointment in Oxford he campaigned for the recognition of colorectal surgery as a specialty and created the present department. He has clinical and research interests in a wide range of colorectal diseases.
In 2020, he was appointed president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. [1] [2] [3]
Mortensen was knighted in the 2024 New Year Honours for services to surgery. [4]
Mortensen was born in Windsor on October 16 1949. He attended Hampton School, and the University of Birmingham Medical School, MB ChB 1973, and University of Bristol, MD 1977. [5] After early surgical training in Bristol and the South West, and higher training at St Marks Hospital he was appointed Senior Lecturer in Surgery, University of Bristol 1981-1986. In 1980 he was awarded a Paul Hawley International Guest Scholarship with the American College of Surgeons. In 1987 he joined the Oxford University Hospitals and became Professor of Colorectal Surgery in 1994. [6]
He is past chair of the British Journal of Surgery Society, and has been past president of the Ileostomy Association, the Association of Coloproctology GBI and the Coloproctology Section of the Royal Society of Medicine. He is immediate past editor in chief of Colorectal Disease. Mortensen is an honorary member of a number of national and international surgical societies including Honorary Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and the American Surgical Society. In 1999 he co-founded the Alpine Colorectal Meting which has been highly influential across Europe. He founded the first patient association for those with ileoanal pouches, the Kangaroo Club in 2000, and in 2004 the charity OCCTOPUS – Oxford Colon Cancer Trust, which supports education, research and the introduction of new technology in colorectal diseases. [6]
He became a member of the council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 2013, and a member of the trustee board in 2016. He served as editor in chief of the Bulletin 2014-2019. In 2017 he was elected vice president, and in 2020 he became president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. [3] [7]
During his presidency, he helped navigate the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, having initially started his term fully remotely. He worked closely with the NHS to tackle the elective surgery backlog and promoted the concept of Surgical Hubs. [7] He led the college’s return to its rebuilt and refurbished headquarters in Lincoln’s Inn Fields 2021-22 and commissioned the Kennedy Review and Action Plan 2021, looking at Diversity, Equity and Inclusion within the profession. [5] He opened the newly repositioned and rebuilt Hunterian Museum in Spring 2023. He demitted as president in July 2023.
He chairs the newly formed National Cancer Audit Collaborative, NATCAN, the charity OCCTOPUS Oxford Colon Cancer Trust, and the University of Oxford Medical Sciences Division Lee Placito Medical Fund. [8] [9] [10]
Outside medicine he chairs Oxford University Tennis Club.
Colectomy is bowel resection of the large bowel. It consists of the surgical removal of any extent of the colon, usually segmental resection. In extreme cases where the entire large intestine is removed, it is called total colectomy, and proctocolectomy denotes that the rectum is included.
Jonathan Larmonth Meakins, is a Canadian surgeon, academic, and expert in immunobiology and surgical infections.
Markus Wolfgang Büchler is a German surgeon and university full professor. He specialises in gastrointestinal, hepatobiliary and transplant surgery, and is especially known for pioneering operations on the pancreas.
Sir Peter John Morris, AC, FRS, FMedSci, FRCP, FRCS was an Australian surgeon and Nuffield professor of surgery at the University of Oxford. Morris was President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, founder of the Oxford Transplant Centre and director of the Centre for Evidence in Transplantation at the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Paolo Antonio Boccasanta is an Italian general surgeon, a professor at the University of Milan and a specialist in general, vascular and thoracic surgery. He took a qualification in Coloproctology in 2000 in Brighton (UK) from the European Board of Surgery.
Sir Alan Guyatt Parks was a British colorectal surgeon, who served as president of the Royal College of Surgeons.
Dion Gregory Morton is a leading colorectal surgeon at the University of Birmingham, where he has been Professor of Surgery since 2006. He was appointed Barling Chair of Surgery at the University of Birmingham in 2015. In addition he has served as Director of Clinical Research at the Royal College of Surgeons of England since 2011. In the latter role he has worked to establish a national infrastructure to support the development and dissemination of clinical trials in surgery. He has championed the role of large-scale multi centre randomised controlled trials in informing best practice in surgery.
Ned Abraham was an Associate Professor of surgery at the Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales and is a general & colorectal surgeon, a clinical academic and a retired Australian Army Reserve Officer. He has spoken at multiple national and international meetings in four continents and his published articles in general, colorectal and academic surgery have been cited in the medical literature close to two thousand times. He continues to practice surgery in Coffs Harbour, NSW, Australia.
Professor Sir Norman Stanley Williams is a British surgeon and former President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (2011–14).
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Shafi Ahmed is a chief surgeon, teacher, futurist, innovator, professor and entrepreneur.
The American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons (ASCRS), formerly the American Proctologic Society, is a professional society for surgeons specializing in colorectal surgery. It is one of the oldest surgical societies, having been established in 1899.
Dr. Roberto Bergamaschi is a colorectal surgery specialist, Chief of Colorectal Surgery Department at Westchester Medical Center, previously Professor of Division of Colorectal Surgery at State University of New York in Stony Brook, NY
John Cedric Goligher (1912–1998) was a British surgeon who specialised in diseases of the rectum and colon and in coloproctology. He was "renowned worldwide" and had "a national and international reputation" He is considered to have been "one of the preeminent clinical investigative surgeons" of his time.
Steven D. Wexner is an American surgeon and physician. He is Director of the Ellen Leifer Shulman and Steven Shulman Digestive Disease Center at Cleveland Clinic Florida. Wexner has received numerous regional, national, and international research awards. Through his multiple academic appointments, Wexner personally trains 15-20 surgeons each year, and he educates thousands more around the world through conferences and lectures. He is a resource for his colleagues from around the world for referral of patients with challenging or complex problems. In 2020, he was elected vice-chair of the Board of Regents of the American College of Surgeons for a one-year term. Since 1990. he has served as Symposium Director of the Cleveland Clinic Annual International Colorectal Disease Symposium. The Symposium was held in Fort Lauderdale or Boca Raton every year from 1990 to 2019. Since 2020, the Symposium has expanded to include host locations outside of the US with interruptions during the pandemic years of 2021–2022.
Conor P. Delaney MD, MCh, PhD, FRCSI, FACS, FASCRS, FRCSI (Hon.) is an Irish-American colorectal surgeon, CEO and President of the Cleveland Clinic Florida, the Robert and Suzanne Tomsich Distinguished Chair in Healthcare Innovation, and Professor of Surgery at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. He is also the current President of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons (ASCRS). He was previously Chairman of the Digestive Disease & Surgery Institute at the Cleveland Clinic. He is both a Fellow and Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and a Fellow of both the American College of Surgeons and American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons.
Peter Vincent Delaney MB, BSc, MCh, FRCSI was an Irish colorectal surgeon. He founded the Sylvester O'Halloran Perioperative Symposium and Meeting, a fixture of the Irish surgical calendar, and received the President's Medal from the University of Limerick.
John Percy Lockhart-Mummery FRCS, was a British surgeon at St Mark's Hospital, London, who devised a classification of rectal cancer and described familial polyposis which led to the formation of the polyposis registry. He was the author of several books, including Diseases of the Rectum and Colon and their Surgical Treatment (1923) and The Origin of Cancer (1934). His work on colorectal surgery earned him the nickname "King Rectum".
Ralph John Nicholls, FRCS (Eng), EBSQ is a retired British colorectal surgeon, Emeritus Consultant Surgeon at St Mark's Hospital London and Professor of Colorectal Surgery, Imperial College London.
Rowan Wesley Parks FRCSEd, FRCSI (RCSI) is a British doctor and academic who is professor of surgical sciences at the University of Edinburgh and president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd). He is a hepato-biliary surgeon who trained in Belfast and Edinburgh and is general secretary of the International Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association (IHPBA) and a past president of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland (ASGBI). His interests include postgraduate medical education and training and he has held senior positions within NHS Education for Scotland (NES). His research interests in hepato-biliary research has resulted in numerous peer reviewed papers and other publications.