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Become a member and receive career-enhancing benefits
Our top priority is providing value to members. Your Member Services team is here to ensure you maximize your ACS member benefits, participate in College activities, and engage with your ACS colleagues. It's all here.
Seven Eminent Surgeons Are Awarded Honorary ACS Fellowship
December 6, 2023
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Honorary Fellowship in the ACS was awarded to seven prominent surgeons from around the world at the October 22 Convocation during Clinical Congress 2023 in Boston, Massachusetts. The granting of Honorary Fellowships is one of the highest honors bestowed during Clinical Congress. Following are summaries of the careers of this year’s Honorary Fellows.
View the full citations and sponsors for the Honorary Fellows—as well as all new Fellows inducted during Clinical Congress—in the 2023 Convocation program at facs.org/convocation.
Luigi Bonavina, MD, FACS Milan, Italy
Dr. Luigi Bonavina is a full professor of surgery at the University of Milan and director of the Department of General and Foregut Surgery at IRCCS Policlinico San Donato in Milan, Italy, where he also is the director of the Foregut Research Center and the Institutional Multidisciplinary Surgical Oncology Board.
Dr. Bonavina’s practice in general surgery and surgical oncology is focused on advancing the surgical treatment of diseases of the esophagus. In his career, he has performed more than 2,000 major surgical procedures on the esophagus via minimally invasive thoracoscopic and laparoscopic surgery and transoral surgery, including esophagectomies for cancer and caustic ingestion, fundoplications and magnetic sphincter augmentations for reflux disease, Heller myotomies for motility disorders, and septum divisions for Zenker diverticulum. Dr. Bonavina has authored more than 450 peer-reviewed research articles and more than 50 book chapters.
An ACS Fellow since 1995, he also is a member of many other scientific societies, including the Académie National de Chirurgie, American Foregut Society, and European Surgical Association.
Christopher R. Chapple, BSc, MBBS, MD, FRCS(Urol), FEBU Fulwood, Sheffield, UK
Prof. Christopher Chapple is a reconstructive urologist in the Royal Hallamshire Hospital at the Sheffield National Trust Hospital in the UK.
Following his training, Prof. Chapple established a reconstructive urological practice at Sheffield National Trust Hospital, where he has focused on functional reconstruction of the urinary tract and urogynecological care for patients referred locally, regionally, and nationally. He also has completed investigations into the effects of neurological disease on the lower urinary tract, as well as the importance of novel receptors and mechanisms of action (the purinergic system, for example). In the course of this work, he has authored more than 750 peer-reviewed articles.
Prof. Chapple is the secretary general of the European Association of Urology, an honorary professor of surgery at the University of Sheffield, a visiting professor of urology at Sheffield Hallam University, and a fellow of several medical organizations. In 2015, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Society for Urodynamics, Female Urology, and Urogenital Reconstruction. In addition, in 2020, he was the first person to be inducted into the International Continence Society Hall of Fame.
Nicola Fearnhead, BM BCh, FRCS, DM, FASCRS Cambridge, UK
Dr. Nicola Fearnhead is a consultant colorectal surgeon at Cambridge University Hospitals Foundation National Health Services Trust and an associate lecturer at the University of Cambridge in the UK. She has had continuous funding for research activities since 2009.
She is a leader in patient-reported outcomes using Delphi analyses and was awarded the 2017 Patient Champion Award for this work. Dr. Fearnhead’s efforts to secure optimal outcomes for patients also is reflected in her research, which has focused in part on the integration of patients into clinical research, including through seeking a broad spectrum of patient views, showing others how to access patient voices, and emphasizing the need to act on patients’ input.
In her research group, she has established eight new principal investigators and five associate principal investigators in the past 5 years. Throughout her career, she has published 158 peer-reviewed articles and numerous book chapters and guidelines, delivered more than 150 national lectures and 25 international lectures, and trained more than 30 fellows in colorectal surgery. Dr. Fearnhead is a past-president of the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland and a member of several medical organizations.
Anna Martling, MD, PhD Stockholm, Sweden
Dr. Anna Martling, of Stockholm, Sweden, is a senior consultant surgeon on the cancer team in the Division of Coloproctology at Karolinska University Hospital, professor of surgery at Karolinska Institutet, and dean of Karolinska Institutet North.
In addition to continuous clinical practice treating colorectal cancer, she has headed a research group since 2008 with a special focus on clinical, translational, and epidemiological studies on colorectal cancer. Through this group, Dr. Martling has served as a principal investigator for six randomized controlled trials and led many studies of large cohorts of patients with colorectal malignant conditions. Her work has generated insights into predictive and prognostic biomarkers, aspirin use, radiotherapy, the timing of surgery, and the development of new surgical techniques in colorectal cancer surgery, and she has authored 133 peer-reviewed articles on these topics and more.
Prof. Deborah McNamara is a consultant general and colorectal surgeon at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin, Ireland, co-lead of the National Clinical Program for Surgery, and clinical professor in surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland (RCSI) in Dublin, where she also currently serves as vice-president.
Following her appointment as a consultant general and colorectal surgeon at Beaumont Hospital in 2003, she was chosen as clinical director for surgery at Beaumont Hospital, where she has led the development of Beaumont’s colorectal cancer biobank and contributed to research collaborations between Beaumont clinicians and RCSI-affiliated scientists.
Prof. McNamara is the first woman to be appointed a consultant colorectal surgeon in Ireland and has participated in efforts to advance gender equity in the surgical profession, including as chair of the RCSI Short-Life Working Group on Gender Diversity in Surgery, which generated a groundbreaking report that inspired changes in Ireland’s surgical environment.
Masaki Mori, MD, PhD, FACS Isehara, Japan
Prof. Masaki Mori is vice-president of Tokai University and dean of Tokai University School of Medicine in Tokyo, Japan, and an internationally recognized leader in cancer stem-cell research in gastrointestinal cancers.
Prof. Mori’s research interests include gastrointestinal surgery, cancer surgery, and translational research. His many achievements include authorship on more than 1,400 peer-reviewed articles. His published insights include identification of CD13 as the world’s first cancer stem-cell marker for liver cancer and the creation of a drug delivery system for inhibitors of CD13. In addition, his accomplishments include the discovery of the antitumor effects of microRNAs, the potential application of microRNA to inhibit tumor growth, and the quantitative analysis of microRNA methylation by mass spectroscopy as a means of cancer diagnosis.
Prof. Mori became an ACS Fellow in 1995, and he has been the recipient of numerous prestigious awards in Japan. For his contributions to academic development, he was awarded the Medal of Honor by the Emperor of Japan in 2020.
Richard David Rosin, MS, MB BS, FRCS(Eng), FRCS(Ed), FICS, FCCS, DHMSA Cave Hill, St. Michael, Barbados
Dr. Richard Rosin is a professor of surgery and honor senior lecturer at the University of the West Indies in Cave Hill, Barbados, where he leads the Department of Surgery.
Dr. Rosin became a senior consultant surgeon at St. Mary’s Hospital and the Imperial School of Medicine in London, specializing in upper gastrointestinal and minimal access surgery and surgical oncology. His innovations as a clinician include the development of the first totally implantable infusion pumps for chemotherapy of the liver and the introduction of laparoscopic surgery, including performing the first laparoscopic cholecystectomy in England. In addition to his work in the UK and Barbados, Dr. Rosin periodically returns to his native country, Zimbabwe, to provide care to hernia patients.
In recognition of his career success, he was made a fellow of both the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh; he also was named a Hunterian Professor of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, which is the most prestigious award in surgery in the UK.
