Prof Barry O'Donnell, the president of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, was last week awarded the highest honour of the American College of Surgeons when an honorary fellowship was conferred on him. He is the first paediatric surgeon to be presented with this distinction.
Two other Irish surgeons, Prof Owen O'Malley and Mr Terence Millin, were previous recipients and Irish surgeons Prof Tom Gorey of the Mater Hospital, Dublin, and Prof Gerald O'Sullivan, Mercy Hospital, Cork, also received fellowships.