Announcing your newly elected Vice-Presidents

Nuha Yassin

Nuha Yassin

Surgery is a profoundly rewarding profession, despite challenges. We deliver the best outcomes when supporting one another and upholding the highest standards of patient care. RCSEng must continue to ensure all members and fellows feel represented, supported, and welcomed. 

My focus on Council has always been straightforward: to represent and support our members and fellows, ensuring the College meets the needs of surgeons at every career stage. This work matters because it directly impacts the patients we serve. Improvements in training, standards, collaboration, and innovation all contribute to safer surgery and better outcomes for everyone who place their trust in us. 

I am honoured to have served on Council since being elected in 2021 and re‑elected in 2025. I am grateful for this continued vote of confidence. I am a consultant colorectal and general surgeon in Birmingham and was the first early-years consultant elected to Council. 

Through the DEI Steering Group, I advocated for two Council seats for early-years consultants. Lifting as we climb and embracing cognitive diversity are essential to a thriving profession. 

I sit at the interface of understanding what trainees/SAS and consultants need while recognising wider NHS challenges affecting surgical practice. Working with colleagues across specialties has strengthened my belief in collaborative leadership. 

As a Council member, I have supported initiatives across the College, including:

• Engagement with grassroots, medical students, trainees, early-career and senior surgeons
• Research, quality improvement, fellowships, grants, and patient safety work
• Events and webinars on robotics, medico‑legal issues, and other key topics
• Modernising learning and assessment
• Quality-assurance and accreditation of training centres and external courses
• Advocacy for inclusivity across gender, race, ethnicity, and beliefs
• Workforce and training initiatives across surgical practice
• Mentorship for trainees and SAS surgeons
• Support for Women in Surgery and emerging leaders

As Chair of the Future of Surgery (FoS) Group, I have led work preparing the profession for an evolving landscape, including:

• Publishing the Good Practice Guide for Robotic Assisted Surgery
• Expanding the RaDaR network with trainee and SAS representation
• Supporting the Innovation Hub
• Establishing Genomics and Digital Surgery Groups
• Updating learning packages to include robotic and digital surgery
• Ensuring quality assurance of robotic fellowships
• Developing device‑agnostic industry partnerships
• Improving access to robotic and digital surgery for students and trainees
• Leading pan‑specialty Delphi consensuses on training‑the‑trainers and curricula
• Leading the annual FoS Flagship Conference

I am now seeking to serve as Vice-President, building on my Council experience. I believe I have the capability, time and commitment required, and I’m grateful for the support of my surgical team, trainees, the wider surgical community, and Council colleagues.

If elected, I will focus on:

• Empowering members and fellows across the breadth of surgical practice
• Promoting equity of access and representation, ensuring trainee voices and diverse perspectives remain integral
• Advancing surgical standards, education, and professional development at every career stage
• Strengthening collaboration between RCSEng, the NHS, and stakeholders

It would be a privilege to serve as Vice‑President and ensure RCSEng remains the trusted home of surgery; progressive, inclusive, and forward‑looking in a fast‑moving environment.

Professor Peter Sagar

Professor Peter Sagar

Hard times come and hard times go but, while accepting current healthcare challenges, a golden age of surgery beckons… 

With the College’s strengths, we can support:

Early years surgeons: 

• Ensure equity of access to quality training with enthusiastic trainers who prioritise surgical trainees.
• Address bottlenecks of training posts, the nonsense of random geographical relocation and reduce the instability of rotas during training.
• Work with hospitals to provide appropriate office facilities, nutritious food 24/7 and appropriate rest facilities.
• Proactively promote the pleasures of a career in surgery to students and trainees.

Middle years surgeons:

• Eliminate bureaucratic mediocrity and reduce unnecessary administrative tasks.
• Develop opportunities for flexible career pathways and tailored mentorship.
• Counter the toxic culture of “guilty until proven innocent” for doctors in difficulty.
• Support access to new technology and relevant training to prevent middle years falling behind.

Later years surgeons:

• Ensure hospitals value the talents of the surgical workforce and underpin and support career development.
• Harness the experience and wisdom of senior surgeons to counter negative drift of the administrators.

The defining challenge of surgery in the 21st century is not the most powerful or glamorous technologies, but who guides them with the greatest wisdom.

Everyone:

• Embed equity in surgical culture.
• Support the President Elect’s wish to provide accommodation for members and fellows within the College.
• Work with “NHSE” on the 10-year plan even if it appears to be “everything, everywhere all the time”!

Remember: nobody wins unless everybody wins.