Leadership

Head, Discipline of Surgery

Professor John Fletcher MD, MS, FRACS, FRCS, DDU

Professor John Fletcher has been at Westmead Hospital since it opened in 1978 when he was appointed Senior Lecturer in Surgery. He is now Professor of Surgery and Head of the University of Sydney Department of Surgery. He is Western Sydney Area Director of Vascular Surgery, Director of the Westmead Vascular Biology Research Centre and Director of the Westmead Vascular Laboratory (for non-invasive assessment of patients with vascular disease).

He was the first Australian and New Zealand Vice-President of the International Union of Angiology (IUA) in 1998-2000 and is an Adviser to the Executive Board. He served on the Executive Committee of the Surgical Research Society of Australasia from 1991-1996 and was President 1997-1998. He is a member of Editorial Boards of Acta Phlebologica, the Annals of Vascular Diseases and the Cochrane Peripheral Vascular Diseases Group, a member of the Court of Examiners in Vascular Surgery of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and Chairman of the Australia and New Zealand Working Party on Prevention and Treatment of Venous Thromboembolism. He was appointed President of the International Surgical Thrombosis Forum (ISTF) in 2008.

He has written extensively on vascular topics. Major clinical interests are the endovascular management of aortic aneurysm, the non-invasive investigation of vascular disease and the prevention and treatment of venous thromboembolism. Basic research interests are the cellular mechanisms in atherosclerotic plaque formation, inhibition of intimal hyperplasia following vascular interventions and prevention of prosthetic vascular graft infection.

Associate Dean of Surgical Sciences

Professor James May AC, MD, MS, FRACS, FACS

Professor May is Bosch Professor of Surgery and Associate Dean Surgical Sciences at the University of Sydney School of Medicine. He has served as Head of the Division of Surgery at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital from 1979 – 1995, as President of the International Society for Cardiovascular Surgery from 2001 to 2004 and President of the International Society of Endovascular Specialists from 2005 – 2007.

Professor May is a graduate of the University of Sydney and completed his general surgical residency at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. He undertook two years of post-graduate training at the University of California in San Francisco and the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.

His clinical experience has encompassed all aspects of vascular intervention and his clinical research interests have centred on endovascular treatment of aneurysms. He has over 400 publications in the surgical literature, mostly on vascular and endovascular surgery. He was appointed a Companion in the Order of Australia (AC) in 2001, his country’s highest honour, for services to the advancement of endovascular treatment of arterial disease. He has also been elected to Honorary Fellowship/Membership of the American Surgical Association, the Society for Vascular Surgery (USA), the Society for Clinical Vascular Surgery (USA), the Canadian Society for Vascular Surgery, the Los Angeles Surgical Society and the Asian Surgical Association.

He is the only Australian to be appointed to the Editorial Board of the Journal of Vascular Surgery and was designated a Distinguished Reviewer by the Editors of this Journal in 2007. He currently serves on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Endovascular Therapy, Cardiovascular Surgery, Journal of Vascular Diseases and Vascular.