Why I became a cancer surgeon

Graeme Poston speaks to Roshaine Gunawardana, Managing Commissioning Editor: Graeme Poston (DSc MB BS, MS, FRCS[Eng], FRCS[Ed]) is a consultant hepatobiliary surgeon at the University Hospital Aintree, Liverpool, UK and Professor of Surgery at the University of Liverpool. He enjoys an international reputation in hepatobiliary surgery. To date, he has personally performed over 900 major hepatobiliary resections. His unit at University Hospital Aintree is one of the largest tertiary resectional hepatobiliary practices in the UK, having performed over 2000 liver resections over the last 20 years. He gained his undergraduate medical training at St Georges Hospital Medical School, London, and postgraduate training at The Hammersmith Hospital and St Mary's Hospital, London and University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX, USA. He is a past President of the European Society of Surgical Oncology, the Association of Upper Gastrointestinal Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, and the British Association of Surgical Oncology. He is Chair of National Health Service England, Hepato Pancreato Biliary Specialized Commissioning, Chair of the NICE Colorectal Cancer Guideline Development Group and Quality Standards Committee, and past Chair of the Cancer Services Committee of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He is a principal investigator of a number of ongoing national and international clinical trials in hepatobiliary surgery, and co-author of numerous national and international guidelines for the management of hepatobiliary cancers, nine textbooks of surgery, and over 230 papers. Honors and distinctions include a Doctorate of Science honoris causa of King George V University, Lucknow; Ernest Miles Medal of the Royal Marsden Surgical Society; Olaf ac Acrel Medal of the Swedish Surgical Association; Stanford Cade Medal of the Royal College of Surgeons of England; Kilroe Medal of the Christie Hospital, Manchester; N K Misra Medal of the Indian Association of Surgical Oncology; Honorary Fellow of the Association of Surgeons of India and the College of Surgeons of Sri Lanka; Hunterian Professor of the Royal College of Surgeons of England; and numerous international visiting professorships. In what little spare time he has, he enjoys trekking in high places (climbed Kilimanjaro, trekked to Everest and Annapurna Base Camps, and crossed the Lakya La).