Professor J Calvin Coffey is the foundation Chair and Professor of Surgery at the School of Medicine, University of Limerick, Ireland. He is a general and colorectal surgeon. His group have transformed our understanding of the content and organisation of the human abdomen. This work has provided a new foundation for all scientific and clinical practice related to the abdomen and is thus relevant to human biology in general. Their discoveries and the identification of the Mesenteric Model of Abdominal Anatomy led to a rewriting of the chapter on the peritoneum, greater omentum and mesentery in many reference textbooks including Bailey and Love’s Short Practice of Surgery, Gray’s Anatomy and Gray’s Surgical Anatomy.
Professor Coffey is the recipient of several international awards and named lectureships. These include the James IV Fellowship, The Bengt Ihre medal and lectureship, The Millen lecture and many others. He has delivered over 100 invited international lectures on the topics of surgical anatomy and abdominal surgery in general. His group also developed novel treatments and surgical approaches for conditions such as Crohn’s Disease and Malrotation. He was the first in Ireland to conduct robotic colorectal surgery.
Key references related to his group’s work are:
The development and structure of the mesentery
The mesentery; structure, function and role in disease
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langas/article/PIIS2468-1253(16)30026-7/abstract
Inclusion of the mesentery in ileocolic resection for Crohn’s disease is associated with reduced surgical recurrence
https://academic.oup.com/ecco-jcc/article/12/10/1139/4788815