Professor Deborah McNamara is President of RCSI and Consultant General & Colorectal Surgeon at Beaumont Hospital, Dublin. She qualified from Trinity College Dublin and completed surgical training in Ireland and France, specializing in surgical management of colorectal cancer. She has extensive experience in all areas of general and colorectal surgery as well as endoscopy.
She was Programme Director of the National Higher Surgical Training Programme in General Surgery (2010-2013) and Clinical Director for Surgery at Beaumont Hospital (2014-2017). Her work as Chair of the Colorectal Cancer Guidelines and Clinical Leads groups of the Irish National Cancer Control Programme (2011-2024) lead to the publication of the first National Clinical Guidelines for colon and rectal cancer, endorsed by the Minister for Health as national policy. In 2017, she chaired the group that published the RCSI PROGRESS report, setting out an ambitious strategy to improve gender equality in surgery in Ireland. She served as Co-Lead of the National Clinical Programme for Surgery (2017-2024), leading large-scale healthcare improvement programmes in areas such as patient safety, operating theatre efficiency, surgical care pathways and models of care for surgical specialties. She has published more than 250 peer-reviewed research papers and has received national and international distinctions including the Patey Prize of the Surgical Research Society, the AWS Olga Jonasson Award, the Millin Lecture and Honorary Fellowships from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and the American College of Surgeons.