Prof Barry O'Donnell, president of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, received an honorary fellowship from the American College of Surgeons in San Francisco yesterday. Prof O'Donnell is the first paediatric surgeon to be awarded this distinction. He has served as president of the Irish, British and Canadian Medical Associations.
Two other Irish surgeons, Prof Tom Gorey of the Mater Hospital, Dublin, and Prof Gerald O'Sullivan of the Mercy Hospital, Cork, received fellowships in the American College of Surgeons yesterday.