Pelican Cancer Foundation Trustee, Myrddin (Merv) Rees, received the OBE in recognition of his services to liver cancer surgery in the New Year Honours. Merv is a Consultant Hepatobiliary Surgeon and pioneered liver resection, the surgical removal of a part of the liver, in the 1980’s at Basingstoke & North Hampshire Hospital, at a time when many medical professionals said that liver resection could not be done. Merv learnt about the bloodless operating technique from an eminent surgeon in Germany, Johannes Scheele, and brought the practice to Basingstoke. His development led to dramatically increased survival rates for patients with liver secondaries, with well over 3,000 patients operated on to date.
Liver cancer is usually a secondary condition that has spread to the organ from a primary cancer in another part of the body, including the bowel. Merv has been a key part of creating the surgical expertise in treating bowel cancer and its associated secondary spread in Basingstoke and is a huge supporter of the work Pelican does.
Merv is always the first to acknowledge that he couldn’t have achieved all of this without many colleagues including his surgical and other medical colleagues, along with many clinical, admin and support teams over the years.
Merv has given his time generously, both professionally and as a Trustee, to many projects over the years and we are thrilled that his pioneering work has been recognised in this way. Pelican is very proud to be associated with such amazing clinical colleagues, of whom Merv is an outstanding example. Huge congratulations Merv.
