Gender Equity in the Medical Profession

Maria Irene Bellini is a Transplant Surgeon in Belfast and Social Care Trust. She graduated from the University of Tor Vergata in Rome (IT) in 2007 and very early in her career, she showed an interest in research and transplantation. She trained as a general and transplant surgeon in the same University, achieving a certification of completion of training in 2014 and a research doctorate in 2015. She moved to the UK in 2013, to complete her PhD in Oxford (UK) and undertake further subspecialty training. During this time, she developed an interest in organ perfusion devices and she held the responsibility for the machine perfusion clinical program at Imperial College London (UK) from 2015 until July 2019. She is a Fellow of the European Board of Surgery and an Associate Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. She is also a Board Member of the European Kidney Transplant Section (EKITA) Board member of the Education Committee of the European Society for Organ Transplantation and Lead for the Educational e-platform Transplant Live. She's also the Lead for the ASGBI (Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland) Women in Surgery section. Maria Irene has broad experience as author and peer-reviewer; she is also involved in editorial board membership of scientific journals as Transplant International and World Journal of Transplantation.

Vassilios Papalois is professor of transplantation surgery and consultant transplant and general surgeon at Hammersmith Hospital. He leads a Transplant Centre of Excellence focusing on high risk and extended criteria kidney and pancreas transplantation. Professor Papalois was trained in general and transplant surgery at St Mary's Hospital and in the department of surgery at the University of Minnesota (post-PhD fellowship and clinical fellowship) which is one of the biggest transplant programmes in the world and has led in the field of transplantation for the last 50 years. He has published 200 papers in peer review journals, 20 book chapters and 7 books. His research focuses on pre-transplant assessment and reconditioning of marginal kidney and pancreas grafts, use of stem cells, clinical ethics and health policy. He has been awarded, through competitive processes, more than £2,000,000 in research grants. Professor Papalois is clinical lead for medico-legal issues at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, chairs the Ethics Committee of the Avon and Somerset Constabulary and he is a member of the Research Ethics Committee of the UK Ministry of Defence. He is the Secretary General of the European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS), the President Elect of the European Society of Organ Transplantation (ESOT), a member of the Executive Board of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland (ASGBI) and a member of the European Society of Surgery (ESS). Professor Papalois organises a series of advanced international courses annually on transplant training, clinical ethics and health policy and has given more than 100 lectures in international forums as an invited speaker. He has been awarded a Bronze National Award for Clinical Excellence by the UK Department of Health, a Senior Clinical Investigator Award by the European Society for Organ Transplantation and a Teaching Excellence Award by Imperial College London. He has also been awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Thessaloniki and he is an Honorary Member of the Spanish Association of Surgeons and the Spanish Transplantation Society.