Surgeon honoured with top award

HONOURED . . . cancer surgeon Graeme Poston

A FORMER Oldham cancer surgeon has won a prestigious national accolade.

Graeme Poston is one of only three working medics to hold the award.

The ex-Hulme Grammar School pupil, now working at Aintree University Hospitals NHS Trust in Merseyside, has been awarded the Stanford Cade Medal by the Royal College of Surgeons in recognition of a lifetime’s achievement in the field.

The medal is the highest honour in British cancer surgery, and is in memory of Sir Stanford Cade, a London surgeon and pioneer of multi-disciplinary cancer management.

The medal, which was first awarded in 1977, is bestowed on cancer surgeons who have distinguished themselves in their careers.

There are only two other recipients still working as surgeons.

The medic, whose father, Dr George Poston, was a GP at Glodwick Health Centre, was the first surgeon in Britain to use cryogenic surgery.

He performed a seven-hour operation in 1993 using liquid nitrogen at minus 190C to freeze and kill cancer cells in the liver.

Mr Poston said of his new award: “I am honoured to have been given this award which recognises the work that not just I, but the whole team have done here at University Hospital Aintree.

“It is certainly nice to know that your colleagues within the profession recognise and appreciate what you have achieved.”

Mr Poston, along with his former colleague Mr Andrew Wu, is responsible for building up the liver specialist unit at University Hospital Aintree, which has become an internationally recognised and world famous specialist centre.

It is the largest practice of its kind in the UK, undertaking more than 300 major liver operations each year, and has one of the highest volumes of patients in Europe.

Mr Poston has personally performed more than 800 major liver and biliary operations, mainly for colorectal cancer and has an international reputation in liver, bile duct and gall bladder surgery.

Mr Poston was awarded the medal when he delivered his lecture about the UK’s improving survival rates for bowel cancer patients to the British Association of Surgical Oncology in London.

He is originally from Oldham, but has lived with his family in Crosby for the past 20 years.