Rowan Parks was born in Belfast, to George Parks, a professor of surgery, and his wife Elisabeth (nee Mahood). His school education was at Inchmarlo preparatory school and then Royal Belfast Academical Institution. He received his medical qualification from Queens University Belfast in 1989 and completed surgical training in Northern Ireland.[1]
Career
After being awarded the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in 1993, Parks went on to full-time research in the Department of Surgery, Queens University Belfast. This work investigated the effect of obstructive jaundice on gut barrier function and resulted in the award of the degree of MD in 1997. This led on to a clinical fellowship in hepato-biliary (HPB) surgery at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.[1] In 1999 he was appointed a senior lecturer in surgery at the University of Edinburgh and honorary consultant surgeon in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. He was subsequently promoted to reader in 2006 and was awarded a personal chair as professor of surgical sciences at the university in 2010.[1]
During this time he developed an interest in surgical education and training, working with NHS Education for Scotland (NES), where he chaired NES surgical training committees and served as Associate Postgraduate Dean for South-East Scotland. From 2012 to 2022 he was Deputy Medical Director of NES.[2]
Parks is the son of Professor George Parks, who was president of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.[3][6]
Awards and recognitions
As a member of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland (ASGBI) he was awarded Moynihan Medal for best original research in 1996 and the Moynihan travelling fellowship in 2001.[7] He served as president of ASGBI between 2017 and 2018.[8]
In 2000 he gave the Millin Lecture and received the Millin medal at the RCSI.[9] He was awarded a Travelling Fellowship from the James IV Association of Surgeons in March 2004, enabling him to visit surgical centres around the world to study techniques in HPB surgery.[10] The James IV Association is an international organisation which exists to promote the exchange of surgical knowledge and promote the highest standards of surgical care. and he became a member of the Association in 2008.[11] He is also a past-president of the Great Britain & Ireland Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association (GBIHPBA), an organisation which promotoes improving healthcare in HPB disease and supports research, training and public awareness in the speciality.[12]
Parks' bibliography includes more than 180 papers and 48 book chapters, and he has edited 11 surgical textbooks.[14][15] Parks' primary clinical and research interests lie in various aspects of HPB Surgery.[14]
Papers
K Soreide, AJ Healey, DJ Mole, RW Parks Pre-, Peri- and Post-operative Factors for the Development of Pancreatic Fistula After Pancreatic Surgery. HPB 2019; 21: 1621-1631 doi: 10.1016/j.hpb.2019.06.004. Epub 2019 Jul 27. PMID: 31362857.
DI Tsilimigras, P Brodt, PA Clavien, RJ Muschel, MI D’Angelica, I Endo, RW Parks, M Doyle, E de Santibanes, TM Pawlik. Liver Metastases.Nature Reviews Disease Primers 2021;7(1):27. doi: 10.1038/s41572-021-00261-6. PMID: 33859205.
Books
Surgery in Focus Elsevier, Churchill Livingstone, (2005). ISBN: 0443073775
Principles and Practice of Surgery (8th edition). Elsevier Science (2023).ISBN: 978-0-7020-8251-1 Co-authored with OJ Garden, SJ Wigmore
