About
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Our History
Colorectal surgery at St. Vincent’s dates back to the 1930s with pioneering work undertaken by Professor High Devine involving double barrel colostomy formation as part of the treatment of colorectal cancer. Among the early general surgeons at St. Vincent’s Fred Connaughton performed a large volume of colorectal surgery. He was known for careful tissue handling and was a great influence on Jack MacKay in particular.
Colorectal surgery as a separate specialty evolved from the Peter Ryan General Surgery Unit comprising Ryan, Brian Collopy, Roy Fink & Jack Mackay, all of whom had undertaken specialised colorectal training in the UK & USA. John Buls also worked in this Unit and was responsible for the introduction of stapling techniques for colorectal anastomosis. He had trained in the Minneapolis USA and returned to work there after 1982.
A stand-alone colorectal out-patient clinic was set up in 1978, one of the first in Australia. The formation of an exclusively colorectal surgical in-patient department followed in 1990 after Peter Ryan retired under the leadership of Brian Collopy. Rod Woods joined Collopy, Fink and Mackay in 1988 and James Keck in 1994, Sandy Heriot (dates), Mike Johnston in 2005 and then Richard Brouwer, Eugene Ong and Basil D’Souza.
Brian Collopy retired in 1999 and Roy Fink took over leadership from 1999 until 2003. John Mackay was leader from 2003 until ? followed by Rod Woods ? until 2021. At present James Keck is acting Head of the St. Vincent’s Colorectal Department.