Evangelos Xynos is ESCP's President and Professor of Surgery at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Crete.
Name: Evangelos Xynos
Current position and hospital: Professor of Surgery, Creta Inter-Clinic Hospital, Coordinator of the Colorectal Cancer Study Group of the Hellenic Society for Gastro-Intestinal Cancers
ESCP Executive position: President
Main clinical and research interests: Colorectal cancer, pelvic floor, functional coloproctology
What made you want to specialise in colorectal surgery?
I believe that the paradigm of David Bartolo during my time in the UK in the early ‘80s played a decisive role.
What is the best part of the job?
The diversity that you can get within the same day! Usually tiring, but never boring! Still a lot to learn even after 43 years in clinical practice.
How long have you been involved in ESCP and what made you want to become involved?
I have been a member since 2005 and I always enjoyed the annual meetings. When I started organising the International Symposium 'Colorectal Games', at home, I made some good friends like Torbjorn Holm, Søren Laurberg, Giovanni Romano and Emmanuel Tiret, who urged me to become actively involved and I thank them for that. I now have the great honour and responsibility of being the President of the society, and I hope I will be able to do it successfully, of course with the help of my colleagues. ESCP is one of the most respected and expanding scientific societies around the globe.
What do you value most about being involved in ESCP?
The opportunity of continuous learning. Also, and even more important, to be able to contribute to colorectal training and research, with the collaboration of colleagues from around Europe.
What would your one bit of advice for younger surgeons starting their career in colorectal surgery be?
Get involved with ESCP ASAP and be active part of it! I think it rhymes…
Seriously, young surgeons have always to remember something that sometimes is easily forgotten due to the workload and everyday routine, and that is empathy - the most valuable quality of a surgeon, in my humble opinion. In the same context, I would also advise them to stop counting their skills by the miles of bowel they have resected, but by the years of good quality of life their patients deserve to gain from their surgery.