Mr Malcolm West

- MMedSc Deputy Module Lead for Research

- PhD/ MD supervision

- BMedSc and MMedSc supervision

- SOCATs Lead for Clinical Lecturers 

- Medical student supervision (BM4, BM6)

Malcolm trained as an undergraduate at the University of Malta (MD, 2000-2005) before moving to the Northwest and Merseyside for foundation and core surgical training. He completed a NIHR funded doctoral research programme in prehabilitation, exercise physiology, perioperative surgical risk stratification, and mitochondrial energetics with Professors Graham Kemp, Mike Grocott and Sandy Jack (PhD, 2011-2014) leading the first UK prehabilitation study in locally advanced rectal cancer patients undergoing chemoradiotherapy.

During his PhD Malcolm was the Clinical Lead for the Perioperative Cardio-Pulmonary Exercise Testing (CPET) service at University Hospitals Aintree. He was then appointed as an academic clinical fellow in Wessex (NIHR ACF, 2014-2016) and subsequently a clinical lecturer (NIHR ACL, 2016-2020). He completed specialist training in surgery in August 2020.

Malcolm is a senior investigator for the Fit-4-Consortium. He works on several work streams, all aimed at improving perioperative and long-term outcomes in patients undergoing major surgery. He is achieving this by reducing the variability around the perioperative period utilising objective risk stratification and tailored multimodal prehabilitation interventions. His research interests include interrogating the pathophysiological mechanisms of changing fitness, nutrition, body composition, frailty and mitochondrial function with cancer therapies and the implementation of prehabilitation interventions to rescue and improve metabolic health, physiological resilience, and cancer outcomes. Malcolm has published extensively with significant high impact papers published in prehabilitation and perioperative medicine. Malcolm was awarded the British Journal of Surgery, John Farndon Prize in 2015 and again in 2017 for his research in predicting surgical outcomes using CardioPulmonary Exercise Testing.

Malcolm is a member of the steering committee for WesFit – The Wessex Fit-4-Cancer Surgery (wesfit.org.uk) and SafeFit (safefit.nhs.uk) trials. He is the chief investigator for the FrOGS (Frailty and Sarcopenia Outcomes in Emergency General Surgery) study, a NIHR funded, trainee-led and delivered observational study interrogating the effect of CT measured body composition and frailty on mortality in patients admitted with an acute surgical pathology. Malcolm is a NIHR GlobalSurg core member with an interest in global surgery and cancer outcomes in low to middle income countries. Malcolm was awarded the Royal College of Surgeons, England, Minimally Invasive and Maximally Invasive (MIMICC) fellowship in Complex and Robotic colorectal cancer surgery at St. Mark’s Hospital, London (2020-2021). He is currently the Association of Surgeons Great Britain and Ireland Moynihan Travelling Fellow for 2021.

Prizes

• First Prize - British Medical Association Medical Book Awards (2017)
• John Farndon - British Journal of Surgery Prize 2017 (2017)
• Moynihan Travelling Fellowship (2020)
• Royal College of Surgeons, England – Minimally invasive Maximally Invasive Colorectal Cancer (MiMICC) Post-CCT Fellowship (2020)
• Health Service Journal Value Awards 2020 – Cancer Care Initiative of the Year – Wessex Fit-4-Cancer Surgery Study (2020)
• John Farndon Prize 2015 - British Journal of Surgery/ Association of Surgeons Great Britain and Ireland (2015)