Rachel Hargest

Miss Rachel Hargest is Co‑director of the Global Surgery Policy Unit – a collaboration between the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the London School of Economics – and Co‑lead of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Health Policy and Impact in Emergency, Critical and Operative (ECO) Care. She is a Council member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, where she chairs the Learning Committee.

She is an academic colorectal surgeon at the University Hospital of Wales and a member of the Cardiff China Medical Research Collaborative at Cardiff University. She specialises in intestinal failure surgery and leads a large practice treating complex patients requiring re‑operative or restorative surgery. She trained in London, Toronto and Johannesburg and has worked in Pakistan, Madagascar and South Africa through her interest in global surgery.

She is an expert teacher and trainer of students and surgeons in training, and has supervised more than 20 PhD/MDs. She received the inaugural FST Medal from the Faculty of Surgical Trainers of RCS Edinburgh and previously won the Silver Scalpel Award from ASIT. She has supervised and mentored surgeons from the UK, China and other countries.

She is President of the Travelling Surgical Society and a Past President of the Royal Society of Medicine Section of Surgery and of the Welsh Surgical Society.