Surgeons’ Lives - Stuff that Matters

Tom Watson is a thoracic surgeon of excellence and works at Corewell Health in Michigan. A Midwestern boy by background he became part of the USC esophageal gang under the mentorship of Tom DeMeester. He then spent 20 years at the University of Rochester where he rose through the ranks to become Professor of Surgery and then in 2016 moved to become a system chair at MedStar in Washington DC. That...

Phil Schauer is one of the nations best known bariatric surgeons. He spent many years and rose to fame in the world of metabolic surgery when in the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio before recently moving to Louisiana and the Pennington Research Institute where he continues to make a difference to patients with morbid obesity and metabolic syndrome. In this discussion, he describes how Bariatric Surgery w...

Tom Varghese, MD,  is the chief of the section of Thoracic Surgery at the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Utah. He's also many other things, including the president of the Society of University Surgeons and one of the founders of the Strong for Surgery program in the American College of Surgeons. He's been NIH funded for quite some time now and is heavily focused in the areas of quality and integrate...

Scott Silvestry MD is the current Division chief of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery at the University of Arizona, Tucson. But he is so much more than that. He was drawn to Medicine and Surgery by family tragedy, leaving the close community of the Bronx to become a doctor. He spent his formative residence years in Duke, or he had the opportunity to learn much – not all good – from the legendary Dr. David S...

Mary Hawn is the Chair of Surgery at Stanford and a highly successful academic general surgeon. For her, life started on the shores of Lake Michigan but after medical school she spent time in Oregon doing a fellowship before joining the UAB faculty in Birmingham. She spent 14 years there rising to become Division of General Surgery. Along the way she married Eben Rosenthal, a high flying academic...

Nick Stafford OBE retired a few years ago as Professor of Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Hull in the UK. However, there is way more to Nick that his surgical achievements. As Co-founder of the Daisy Appeal Charity his leadership raised many, many millions and the creation of a unique PET scanning center in Hull - achievements acknowledged by the award of the OBE. He is a serial classic...

David Rothenberger came from the humblest of beginnings in South Dakota with no plans for college never mind a stellar career in surgery. He witnessed family tragedy with two infant deaths and decided immediately to become a doctor. And so he did with a combination of government loans and scholarships. He liked the look of the Princeton brochure so applied there before returning to Minnesota and T...

In this latest episode of #Surgeonslives we hear from Professor John MacFie who is now happily retired from a stellar career in surgery in the UK. Rising to the Presidency of #ASGBI he was a superb clinical surgeon, researcher and mentor of many. His views on that part of life are worth listening to as always. However, he also discusses what has vexed him in recent years about the rise in medical...

Professor Sir Neil Mortensen grew up in a humble and evangelical family, went to medical school as something worthy and became a surgeon probably because of a student mentor. After that, there was no stopping him as he rose through the ranks to the very, very top as a world renowned colorectal surgeon and most recently President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. The interview starts wit...

Herb Chen is a pretty accomplished guy when you think about it! Having said that, I have accused him of being worryingly organized!   Dr. Chen is Chair of the Department of Surgery at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), the Surgeon-in-Chief of UAB Hospital and Health System, and the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the UAB Heersink School of Medicine. He is a Professor of S...

Professor Ronan O'Connell was born and raised in Dublin and still lives there today with his wife Pauline. He became a colorectal surgeon almost by chance during a research fellowship and then rose to the very top in everything he touched - Chair of Surgery, President of RCSI and ESA, Editor of the world's most successful surgery textbook. In this interview he describes a life journey from an inte...

Justin Dimick is of course one of the nest known and highly successful surgical academics in the US. First and foremost he is a passionate surgeon with a mission to improve the outcomes for his patients as well as patients worldwide through "understanding the data". A Health Services Researcher par excellence he has co-authored some of the seminal papers in the "Quality" field with some giants in...

Liane Feldman is the Chair of Surgery at McGill in Montreal and not that long ago was President of Sages. She is Canadian through and through and has spent almost all of her career in her home city. Naturally she is a "Habs" hockey fan and avid outdoors enthusiast - running, cycling and skiing or simply being at her lakeside cottage. A recent empty nester she is very proud of her three kids culina...

Tracy Hull has been part of the furniture at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio for 3 decades. A self-confessed "plodder" she has nonetheless reached the top of the mountain as a colorectal surgeon and fierce patient advocate. Born into the family veterinarian business she was closing surgical wounds with her dad from the earliest of years so perhaps it was always going to be the career of a surgeon in...

Professor Sir Norman Williams is a big cheese in many areas. First off, he has been a big name in the colorectal surgery field for decades, contributing so game-changing papers on rectal cancer and pelvic floor diseases. I first met him in 1984 so this was a fascinating discussion for us both. Alongside the clinical and research achievements, he became President of the Royal College of Surgeons of...

Frederick L Greene MD - Rick to his innumerable friends and colleagues - has been at the center of the cancer world for decades.  Known for his long-standing editorial role with the AJCC Staging Manual he served as Chair of the Commission on Cancer at the American College of Surgeons. He remains passionate about the role of Cancer Registries and most importantly, the Cancer Registrars themselves....

Jim Fleshman is the Chair of Surgery in Dallas - he moved to Baylor about a decade ago after a stellar career almost entirely at Wash U in St. Louis. Born in New Orleans he essentially grew up in Bangor in Northern Ireland in the midst of "The Troubles" before the family moved to the Mid-West where he spent most of his adult life. An early advocate of the academic way in colorectal surgery he led...

Joep Knol is a Dutch surgeon who has worked for many years in Belgium where his reputation for technical mastery and educational innovation has produced global recognition. His iLapp foundation was started to try and produce a new pathway for teaching surgery which has become a passion. Growing up an undersized kid in Nigmegen - remember the movie?? - he was an enthusiastic and skilled goalie who...

Andrew Stevenson is one of Australia's foremost Colorectal Surgeons. Brought up in Melbourne he was there at the start of laparoscopy during his Fellowship in Brisbane - where he has stayed for all of his Consultant career. However, it would be a mistake to think he is a home boy. He travelled alone from Melbourne to Vancouver when he was 14 - and stayed for a year of high school. he fell in love...

Tim Pawlik seems to do it all - Surgical Oncologist, Researcher, Chairman - as well as a huge sports fan (Buckeye and Boston), family man and devoted fish watcher. Trained in Boston, Michigan and Texas he landed in Johns Hopkins for 5 years where he hones his craft as an HPB surgeon before becoming Chair of Surgery at Ohio State in Columbus some 7 years ago. In this (standing) interview we hear ab...

Neil Hyman reached the top in colorectal surgery having realized he was too slow and short to be a professional basketball player. The NBA will never know what they missed! Growing up in New York he trained with giants like Randy Steinhagen and Vic Fazio before spending the bulk of his career at the University of Vermont and then finally the University of Chicago. A former President of ASCRS he is...

David Rattner has had a stellar career in surgery and his academic achievements should be an inspiration to all surgeons. Decades of clinical and innovation contributions in Boston where he was a fixture at MGH brought many awards including his personal ambition of being a full Professor. President of SAGES followed along with mentoring many young surgeons and being one of the originators of NOTES...

John "Tarp" Tarpley is quite simply a force of energy - blessed with an excellent thyroid gland he says! Despite being long past "retirement" age he continues to work as a huge force for good in African surgery driven by a passion for teaching and his lifelong personal faith. He is a legend in Vanderbilt where he was Program Director for many years, operative teacher and missions based surgeon. He...

Undoubtedly one of the most famous surgeons in the world, Steve Wexner has his fingers in so many pies. He should have followed the family tradition and become a lawyer, judge or politician - but then he might have ended up on the Supreme Court or in the White House! As it is, he has been a leader of countless organizations and President of many. A Brooklyn boy he had a vision for a career in surg...

This is a special interview you should definitely not miss. First a disclaimer - Vivian has been a friend since we were medical school classmates more than 40 years ago!! For the first half hour Vivian describes his early career in Ireland and Canada as a GP before retiring to Ireland after a family tragedy. Stumbling into some surgery training jobs he spent a year in transplantation and his caree...