Celebrating International Women’s Day and reflecting on a busy and productive quarter for the College

International Women’s Day takes place on 8 March. One of the things that I’ve been endeavouring to support in my current role is women in surgery – particularly, women in leadership roles. I’ve also been encouraging women to act as role models for others. I’m delighted to be working with Chanté St Clair Inglis, who has been driving this from the heritage perspective within the College (see pages 30–33) and has also been helping to generate our wider thinking.

One aspect of this was to agree to commission new artwork for the College (see pages 38–41), a portrait of multiple people. For this, we have focused on those women who have been awarded the Hunter Doig Medal, one of our most prestigious awards in the College. The award has been running since 2007 to recognise outstanding Fellows and Members, who are deemed as having significant influence in the surgical profession.

The portrait will be unveiled in April and will be an opportunity to highlight the importance of supporting women in surgical practice. It was just over 100 years ago, in 1920, that the College announced its first female Fellow. Encouragingly, an increasing proportion of our diploma recipients, new Members and Fellows are now female. 

As a College, one of the things we are most mindful of is trying to ensure that surgical training and career pathways, as well as other opportunities, are made accessible to women, supporting them into their consultant practice. There is a particular emphasis on leadership development and giving women opportunities to take up leadership roles (see pages 42–43). It is great that, for the first time in our 500-year history, one of our current Vice-Presidents is female. 

We have also just advertised this year’s Hunter Doig Medal. Having reviewed the applications for last year’s prize, the standard and quality of the nominations were incredible. The entry deadline for the 2025 Hunter Doig Medal is 23 May so I would encourage those who are eligible to apply.

Recent reflections 

Since the last issue of Surgeons’ News, one significant landmark has been getting unanimous approval for our new governance structure to be fully implemented at the Annual General Meeting. The emphasis for the remainder of my Presidency will be to ensure that this is implemented, so that when there’s a major changeover in November and the new administration comes in, the governance implementation will be complete. 

We are working through the details of that at the moment: what it means for our current Shadow Board of Trustees, which will take over as the formal Board
of Trustees, and the implications for enhancing the role of Council as the professional voice for our Fellows and Members.

This requires a lot of work in the background on committee structures, terms of reference as well as the roles and responsibilities of clinicians and lay representatives. I am extremely grateful to all the efforts of our Honorary Secretary, Professor Robin Paton, our Chief Executive, Mark Egan, and our Head of Governance, Risk and Compliance, Lindsey Scott, as well as the Office Bearers and Senior Leadership Team.

At the end of December, I had a very enjoyable and enlightening visit to Harare, Zimbabwe, for the annual COSECSA (College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa) conference and examinations. This is an organisation and geographical region that we are endeavouring to support in surgical education and training. It was thrilling to see the successful exam candidates graduate and to be involved in a really exciting conference, especially as COSECSA was celebrating its silver jubilee, having formed as a surgical college in 1999.

What’s coming up? 

A number of important events in the College and in collaboration with our partners overseas are approaching. I’m looking forward to attending an International Surgical Congress in Lahore next month, organised by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Pakistan. I will also be travelling to the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland for its Charter Meeting, where it will be a huge privilege to be awarded its Honorary Fellowship.

In terms of other events and meetings, I will be attending the Association of Surgeons in Training (ASiT) meeting in Belfast at the beginning of March. It’s always a great occasion, with usually more than 1,000 surgical trainees in attendance. I’m looking forward to contributing to the programme and engaging with trainees at all stages of their career journeys.

Our own Faculty of Pre-Hospital Care will hold its annual meeting in Birmingham in March and I will then be travelling to Hong Kong and China for examinations and accreditation visits with colleagues from the College of Surgeons of Hong Kong. 

Although the diary is looking fairly full for the next two or three months, there are many great opportunities, including plenty of events and activities, to support and attend. There will also be a lot of planning and preparation in advance of the Triennial and ICOSET Meeting, which will be held in Edinburgh in June. I really hope you put 4–6 June in your diaries to visit this major event in our College calendar.