The 2016-17 London President, Miss Jo Franks FRCS will deliver her address to the Association entitled “Evolution if not revolution in breast cancer management” on Monday 20th February 2017 at 19:30.

Miss Franks qualified from Imperial College with honours. She took a year out to complete research, funded by the Medical Research Council, which resulted in a first class BSc in pathology with basic medical science. During her Higher Surgical Training she had a National Training Number with the London Deanery and spent the latter part of her training in the Oncoplastic Breast Unit and Macmillan Cancer Centre at UCLH.

As the clinical lead of the breast team at UCLH she regularly sees and treats patients who present to the symptomatic clinic as well as those who have been recalled through the NHS breast screening programme. She sees patients who have been identified as gene carriers or come from the family history clinic and are felt to be high risk for developing breast cancer. Her interests include breast conservation using oncoplastic techniques as well as immediate reconstruction where a mastectomy is necessary.

Miss Franks has an interest in assessment and training and completed an MSc in Medical Education. She standard-sets for University College London and the Royal Free Hospital Medical School and is a regular examiner. She works with the General Medical Council item-writing and standard- setting as part of Fitness to Practice and is one of their Medical Assessors.

On Monday 6th March 2017 the Association hosted a reception for a team of visiting Israeli colorectal surgeons.

The visit was organized by Prof Alex Deutsch and was led by Dr Reuven Weil from the Rabin Medical Centre (Golda).

The visit was supported by the Israel, Britain and the Commonwealth Association – John Furman Fund; and by the David Yanir Foundation for the Advancement of Colorectal Surgery in Israel.

The members of the visiting team were:

Dr Alexander Barenboim (Sourasky Medical Centre, Tel Aviv)

Dr Yonatan Demma (Hadassah Hospital, Jerusalem)

Dr Ofer Eldar (Hasharon Medical Centre, Petach Tikva)

Dr Dmitry Fadeev (Shaarei Zedek Hospital, Jerusalem)

Dr Bassel Haj (Bnai-Zion Medical Centre, Haifa)

Dr Aviel Meoded (Poria Medical Centre, Poria)

Dr Benjamin Raskin (Sheba Medical Centre, Ramat Gan)

Dr Gal Westrich (Sheba Medical Centre, Ramat Gan)

While in the UK they were the guests of Mr Richard Cohen (University College London Hospital), Mr Joseph Nunoo-Mensah (Kings College Hospital) and Mr Andrew Williams (St Thomas’s Hospital), and will be attending a course at Basingstoke Hospital.

Following the reception there was a panel discussion symposium chaired by Prof Irving Taylor on the topic of “Crohn’s Disease 2017”.

Crohn’s case studies were presented by the visiting Israeli surgeons, and recent genetic (Dr Adam Levine), medical (Prof Stuart Bloom) and surgical (Mr Richard Cohen and colleagues) aspects were discussed, with a concluding overview from Prof Deutsch.