Year Directors

The Programme Director and individual Year Directors are there to facilitate your orientation and smooth progression through the various elements of the ESSQ, from the initial Certificate and Diploma years to successful completion of the Masters Project in the third (MSc) year. A variety of subject-specialist e-Tutors provide academic support through online discussion boards during Years 1 and 2 and a Masters Project Supervisor will support you during Year 3.

Year 1 Director
Ms Anna Paisley, BM BCh, MA, MD, FRCSEd
Consultant General & Upper Gastrointestinal Surgeon and Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer

Born and educated in Belfast, Ms Paisley attended Oxford University Medical School, qualifying in 1993. She then had house jobs in Oxford and Gloucester, followed by Accident and Emergency in Northampton and Anatomy Demonstrating at Guy's Hospital, London.

Upper GI Surgical Fellow at St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne for one year from February 2005. Basic and higher surgical training carried out in South East Scotland, based primarily at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Doctor of Medicine in Assessment of Basic Surgical Trainees awarded from Oxford University in 2003. Ms Paisley was appointed as Consultant General & Upper GI Surgeon at the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh in January 2007. 

Ms Paisley’s main clinical interests lie in the management of benign and malignant oesophagogastric disease, together with emergency general surgery.

Year 2 Director
Mr Peter Lamb MBBS, FRCS, MD, FRCSEd
Consultant General & Upper Gastrointestinal Surgeon and Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer

Mr Lamb was appointed as a consultant in 2008 with subspecialist interests in oesophagogastric and minimally invasive surgery. He has an active interest in undergraduate teaching and surgical training.

Mr Lamb’s main research interest is oesophagogastric cancer, and during his training he completed an MD at the Northern Oesophagogastric Unit, Newcastle, on sentinel node mapping in oesophageal cancer. He completed his higher surgical training in the Northern Deanery followed by an oesophagogastric fellowship in 2007/8 at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, Australia.

Year 3 Director
Professor Stephen Wigmore MD, FRCSEd
Consultant General & Upper Gastrointestinal Surgeon and Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer

Professor Wigmore returned to Edinburgh as Professor of Transplantation Surgery in 2007. He held this post as a senior lecturer and honorary consultant surgeon at the Scottish Liver Transplant Unit, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.

Professor Wigmore was appointed Professor of Transplantation Surgery at the University of Birmingham and Liver Unit, Queen Elizabeth Medical Centre in 2005.  His thesis on hepatic acute phase protein expression in cancer was followed by a visiting post doctoral scholarship at the University of California San Francisco, as a Yamagiwa Yoshida Fellow of the UICC with Dr Bill Welch. On his return he was awarded an Advanced Fellowship by the Wellcome Trust.

Professor Wigmore graduated from King's College School of Medicine and Dentistry and, after two further years in London, moved to Edinburgh to undertake his basic and higher surgical training with Professor Sir David Carter and Professor James Garden.

More information about all Year Directors, including publication lists, can be found on the University of Edinburgh's Department of Clinical Surgery's website.