Surgical Grand Rounds - Quality, Reliability, Safety and Teamwork Unit

Speakers 

Professor Peter McCulloch, Professor of Surgical Science and Practice, Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences

Peter’s surgical career has been centred on surgical oncology, initially in breast cancer and latterly in gastro-oesophageal cancer.  He graduated from Aberdeen University and trained in surgery and did his doctoral research in Glasgow before becoming a Senior lecturer at Liverpool University.  He moved to Oxford in 2004 and was appointed Professor of Surgical Science & Practice in 2013. He is an NIHR Senior Investigator and runs two research groups within NDS.   His Quality, Reliability, Safety and Teamwork Unit (QRSTU) evaluates methods for improving the quality and safety of surgical interventions, and is currently running a 24 hospital randomised trial (RESPOND) of a Human Factors intervention to improve rescue efforts for patients with serious postoperative complications.  Peter founded the IDEAL Collaboration in 2009 to promote the use of better methodology in the scientific evaluation of surgery and other complex healthcare interventions.  The group has developed recommendations for an integrated evaluation pathway for surgical studies throughout the life cycle of an operation, and more recently has applied the same principles to guidance for the evaluation of therapeutic devices and of AI in healthcare.  They published their paper on evaluation of surgical robots in Nature Medicine in January this year.

Dr Mark Slack, Co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of CMR Surgical

Mark qualified as a doctor at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. He then completed his postgraduate training at the University of Cape Town. He graduated from the College of Medicine of South Africa in Gynaecology, winning the Daubenton Gold Medal for the most distinguished candidate in the exams in the country. He was previously head of Gynaecology and Urogynaecology at Addenbrooke's Hospital, University of Cambridge Teaching Hospitals Trust, Cambridge. Mr Slack has run an active research unit in Cambridge. He developed and introduced the Sacrospinous Fixation to the UK, which is now the most commonly performed procedure for prolapse in the United Kingdom. He has invented several procedures which were adopted and taken to global launch by international medical device companies. Mr Slack has published over 100 peer reviewed papers, more than 25 book chapters and numerous national guidelines. He is a regular contributor on several National Radio and Television programmes. He is a co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of CMR Surgical, a start-up company in Cambridge which has developed a surgical robot (Versius). This is now the second largest soft tissue robotic company in the world. In 2021 it had the highest private MedTech funding round in the world with a $660 million raised. The subsequent valuation gave it Unicorn status. He was appointed the Ethicon travelling Professor in 2004, as well as the Sims Black Professorship of the RCOG. He was recognised by the NIHR in 2015 with an award as one of the leading researchers in the UK for clinical research. In 2018 under his leadership the Urogynaecology unit in Cambridge achieved the highest accreditation score ever awarded by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. In 2021 he was awarded honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons and Physicians of Glasgow and the French Academy of Surgeons.

Mr John Hanrahan, Academic Clinical Fellow in Neurosurgery with an interest in health systems research. 

John is an Academic Clinical Fellow in Neurosurgery and is module lead at the NHS Digital Academy. He graduated from King’s College London with Distinction and completed an Academic Foundation Programme at the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on health systems, device evaluation and the application of surgical robotics as part of the TeQ group at UCL.

All members of the University and NHS clinical staff are welcome.

Please email Louise King if you would like to attend online.