2019 saw honorary fellowships awarded to six eminent figures who have made a significant contribution to medical science.
Richard Rodney Anthony Syms, professor of microsystems technology at Imperial College London
Richard Syms is professor of microsystems technology at Imperial College London, where his outstanding translational research has made a huge difference to interventional technology. As an engineer with a special interest in miniaturised sensors he has significantly improved MR imaging coils and catheters for cardiac and biliary catheterisation and streamlined both CT and MR imaging technology. His work provides successful technological answers to the everyday problems clinicians encounter in interventional cardiology, radiology and gastroenterology.
Kevin Murphy, professor of endocrinology in the faculty of medicine at Imperial College London
Kevin Murphy is professor of endocrinology in the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London producing important and timely work on the role of the appetite centres of the brain in regulating food intake and controlling body weight. With his teaching roles as director of postgraduate studies in the department of medicine and director of the BSc degree in endocrinology at Imperial, along with his work on widening participation in medical studies, he is also a key opinion leader in shaping the future of undergraduate medical training.
Paul Belcher, European and global health advocacy adviser
Paul Belcher is a senior adviser on European and global health advocacy. He is strategic adviser to the president and board of the Brussels-based European Public Health Alliance and a longstanding member of the Expert Advisory Committee of the annual European Health Forum. In 2003 he was asked to establish a presence for the RCP in Brussels, from where it has had effective influence throughout Europe.
Professor Kanak Barua
Kanak Barua is a past president of the Bangladesh College of Physicians and Surgeons and now chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University. This followed a 20-year career working in government health services in Bangladesh. Renowned as a skilful surgeon, he has a reputation for embracing technology and has become a pioneer in advanced neurosurgical methods. As senior vice-chairman of Bangladesh Medical Research Council, he played a significant role developing in medical research in the country.
Professor MD Nazrul Islam
Nazrul Islam initiated and developed echocardiography, invasive cardiology and cardiac electrophysiology in Bangladesh. He organised the Fellowship Programme in Cardiology of the Bangladesh College of Physicians and Surgeons. He is also active in research, improving genetic research and focusing on patient care in Bangladesh.
(Isobel) Jane Cox, senior research scientist at Institute of Hepatology, Kings College London and for the Foundation of Liver Research
Jane Cox, senior research scientist at the Institute of Hepatology, Kings College London, and for the Foundation for Liver Research, has been one of the true innovators in MRI and its utility in clinical medicine from its inception in 1984. She developed clinical MR spectroscopy as a discipline and trained generations of radiologists, paediatricians, intensive care physicians, infectious disease and HIV physicians, neurologists and hepatologists who came to work in the MR research environment. Her contribution to one of the major clinical translational developments of the 20th century – to the point where the basic science has been translated into an invaluable clinical tool available in the UK and around the world – is unparalleled.