About
Malcolm West is an Associate Professor in Colorectal Surgery and Prehabilitation Medicine at the University of Southampton, with an honorary appointment as a consultant colorectal and complex cancer surgeon at University Hospitals Southampton NHS Foundation Trust.
He is a senior investigator for the Fit-4-Surgery Consortium and the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre, where he lead a research programme aimed at improving perioperative and long-term tumour outcomes in patients undergoing major surgery using tailored multimodal prehabilitation interventions. He runs various clinical trials and is an NIHR GlobalSurg core member with an interest in global surgery and cancer outcomes in low to middle-income countries.
Qualifications
MD, University of Malta, 2005
MRCS, Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, 2009
FRCS, Royal College of Surgeons, England, 2019
FRCS, Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, 2019
FEBS Colorectal, European Board of Surgery, 2023
Current Appointments held
Associate Professor, University of Southampton
Honorary Consultant Colorectal and Complex Cancer Surgeon, University Hospitals Southampton NHS Foundation Trust
CRN Wessex, Surgical Specialty Lead
Co-chair and regional advisor, NIHR Research for Patient Benefit programme (RfPB)
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Research
Research interests
- Prehabilitation
- Perioperative risk assessment
- Complex cancer surgery
- Colorectal cancer
Current research
Malcolm is a senior investigator for the Fit-4-Surgery Consortium and the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre. He leads a research programme, aimed at improving perioperative and long-term outcomes in patients undergoing major surgery. He interrogates the variability around the perioperative period utilising objective risk stratification and intervenes using tailored multimodal prehabilitation.
His wider research interests include interrogating the pathophysiological mechanisms of changing fitness, nutrition, body composition, frailty and mitochondrial function with cancer therapies and the implementation of prehabilitation interventions to rescue and improve metabolic health, physiological resilience, and cancer outcomes.
He is a core member of the NIHR GlobalSurg programme and is especially interested in surgical outcomes in low-middle income countries.
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Current research
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Supervision
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Teaching
Malcolm has a keen interest in education and currently supervise PhD, MD, MMedSc and BMedSc students at the University of Southampton.
He is the MMedSc Deputy Module Lead for Research and the SoCATs lead for Academic Clinical Lecturers.
He supervises core and higher surgical trainees, foundation doctors, and Academic Foundation Programme doctors. He also provides medical student supervision for the BM4 and BM6 courses. He also is an anatomy demostrator for the GI module.
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External roles and responsibilities
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Biography
Malcolm trained as an undergraduate at the University of Malta (MD, 2000-2005) before moving to the Northwest and Merseyside for foundation and core surgical training. He completed an NIHR-funded doctoral research programme in prehabilitation, exercise physiology, perioperative surgical risk stratification, and mitochondrial energetics with Professors Graham Kemp, Mike Grocott and Sandy Jack (PhD, 2011-2014) leading the first UK prehabilitation study in locally advanced rectal cancer patients undergoing chemoradiotherapy.
During his PhD Malcolm was the Clinical Lead for the Perioperative Cardio-Pulmonary Exercise Testing (CPET) service at University Hospitals Aintree. He was then appointed as an NIHR academic clinical fellow in Wessex (NIHR ACF, 2014-2016) and subsequently an NIHR clinical lecturer (NIHR ACL, 2016-2020). He completed specialist training in surgery in August 2020 (FRCS 2019, FEBS 2023).
Malcolm has published extensively with significant high-impact papers published in prehabilitation and perioperative medicine. Malcolm was awarded the British Journal of Surgery, John Farndon Prize in 2015 and again in 2017 for his research in predicting surgical outcomes using CardioPulmonary Exercise Testing.
Malcolm is co-investigator of the WesFit – The Wessex Fit-4-Cancer Surgery (wesfit.org.uk) and SafeFit (safefit.nhs.uk) trials and is the chief investigator for the FrOGS study (>£5.2M). Malcolm is an NIHR GlobalSurg core member with an interest in global surgery and cancer outcomes in low to middle-income countries.
Malcolm was awarded the Royal College of Surgeons, England, Minimally Invasive and Maximally Invasive (MIMICC) fellowship in Complex and Robotic colorectal cancer surgery at St. Mark’s Hospital, London (2020-2021). He is currently the Association of Surgeons Great Britain and Ireland Moynihan Travelling Fellow for 2021-2022.
Malcolm was appointed as an associate professor in colorectal surgery and prehabilitation medicine in 2022. He is a complex cancer consultant surgeon, specialising in the treatment of colorectal cancer including primary, advanced, and recurrent cancers in particular pelvic cancers. He performs open and minimally invasive surgery, exenterative surgery (including sacrectomy), intraoperative radiotherapy (IOERT), and cytoreductive surgery with hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HiPEC).
He is currently the sub-speciality lead for the surgical research portfolio at the Clinical Research Network, Wessex and serves as the co-chair of the NIHR Research for Patient Benefit programme for southern England.
He has a keen interest in education and currently supervises PhD, MD, MMedSc and BMedSc students at the University of Southampton, where he is the MMedSc Deputy Module Lead for Research and the Southampton NIHR Clinical Academic Training Programme Lead.
Prizes
- First Prize - British Medical Association Medical Book Awards (2017)
- John Farndon - British Journal of Surgery Prize 2017 (2017)
- Moynihan Travelling Fellowship (2020)
- Royal College of Surgeons, England – Minimally invasive Maximally Invasive Colorectal Cancer (MiMICC) Post-CCT Fellowship (2020)
- Health Service Journal Value Awards 2020 – Cancer Care Initiative of the Year – Wessex Fit-4-Cancer Surgery Study (2020)
- John Farndon Prize 2015 - British Journal of Surgery/ Association of Surgeons Great Britain and Ireland (2015)
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Prizes
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