The Doctor Awards, now in their tenth year, awarded the Founder-Director of Cork Cancer Research Centre the prestigious award at the Mansion House in Dublin last night. 

 

President of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Ireland, Professor Tom Walsh, who gave the citation at the Awards ceremony last night praised Prof O’Sullivan on his contributions to medicine in Ireland.

 

“Prof O’Sullivan is one of the most outstanding surgeons of his generation and one of its most original thinkers.  His creativity and contribution to medical science has been recognised both in Europe where he currently holds the Presidency of the European Surgical Association and in America where he was recently awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the American College of Surgeons (ACS).

 

“Above all there are thousands of patients all over Ireland who would join me in thanking Prof Gerry O’Sullivan for his enormous contributions to medicine and cancer research. I am delighted to be presenting the Lifetime Achievement Award to an exemplary individual who still is contributing greatly.”

 

“Like Barack Obama’s Nobel Prize for Peace it should be consider as much as an encouragement for his continuing "Work in Progress" as well as a reward for achievement to date….In the words of Cassius as he said of Caesar, Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world like a colossus.” “The 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient is the Surgeon, Scientist, Intellectual, Inspiration, Free spirit, Prof Gerald C O’Sullivan.”

 

In a tremendous night for CCRC, medical researcher Dr. Sarfraz Ahmad was also honoured for his published research with the 2009 Doctor Award for Best Published Research in Surgery and Oncology.

 

For the past ten years, the Doctor Awards - known as the ‘Medical Oscars’ - have been honouring groundbreaking Irish research on the international stage. The awards are presented by Ireland’s oldest and most respected international research publication The Irish Journal of Medical Science in conjunction with the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland.

 

President of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland (RAMI), Professor Tom Walsh commented “The last decade of the Doctor Awards has celebrated Ireland’s greatest contributors to medicine and science. The Awards aim to recognise and encourage excellence in clinical research by hospital doctors, GPs and medical researchers working in Ireland.

 

“Its a great honour to be President of RAMI at the tenth anniversary of the Doctor Awards.”  Eleven doctors were presented with specially commissioned awards across disciplines as diverse as cardiology, oncology and general practice at the ceremony."