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Bupa Foundation board

Professor John MacFie

Professor John MacFie was born and educated in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. He qualified in 1974 from University of Birmingham, obtained his FRCS in 1978 and was awarded his MD in 1980. After two years full-time research under the direction of Professor J C Goligher and Professor G L Hill in the University Department of Surgery in Leeds, he completed surgical training and was appointed senior lecturer, University of Auckland, NZ 1984 and Consultant Surgeon, Scarborough hospital in 1986.

His clinical interests remain predominantly colorectal with a specific commitment to the management of patients with intestinal failure and those with inflammatory bowel disease. He maintains an active interest in nutrition and metabolism, ethics and care of the critically ill. The nutrition team he chairs is one of the longest established nutrition units in the UK.

John MacFie has received a number of prizes and research fellowships for his research over the years. He has written over 175 papers and many book chapters. Particular interests include energy metabolism in surgical patients, the utilisation of fat emulsions, the use of peripheral parenteral nutrition, the ethics of nutritional support and gut barrier function. More recently his research endeavours have included prospective clinical trials investigating the value of enhanced recovery protocols after surgery, the place of pre- and probiotics, the use of gut specific nutrients and the role of pre- versus post-pyloric feeding.

In 1996 he was awarded a Hunterian Professorship by the Royal College of Surgeons of England for his research work into bacterial translocation in surgical patients. He was the recipient of the John F Kinney prize for nutrition and metabolism in 2001, the British Journal of Surgery editorial prize (John Farndon) in 2003 and the Moynihan prize in both 2005 and 2007.

He has represented the Royal College of Surgeons on the intercollegiate working party on nutrition, which seeks to improve the science of clinical nutrition in the United Kingdom, and holds an honorary senior lecturer contract with the University of Leeds. He has been a member of many guideline groups including ESPEN, NICE and BAPEN. He is on the editorial board of the British Journal of Surgery and Nutrition and referees papers for many other international journals.

In 1998 he was elected to the court of examiners of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and in 2000 to represent Yorkshire on the Council of the Association of Surgeons of GB and Ireland. In 2001 he was elected regional advisor in Yorkshire for surgery and subsequently as programme director for general surgery in the Yorkshire Deanery. In 2003 he was appointed as hon editorial secretary and member of the Executive of the Association of Surgeons of GB and Ireland. In 2005 he received a personal chair from the Post Graduate Medical Institute, University of Hull. He is current president of the Leeds Regional Surgical Club.