John McCall has been named the first McKenzie Professor of Clinical Science at the University of Otago, and will split his time 50-50 between teaching at the Dunedin School of Medicine and performing surgery at Dunedin Hospital.
The new post is supported through an endowment by the F and J McKenzie Charitable Trust.
Farquhar and Josephine McKenzie were well-known citizens of Dunedin, the university said in a statement yesterday.
Their endowment's general purpose was to foster medical and surgical research and teaching through the recruitment and/or retention of clinical academic staff at the Dunedin School of Medicine.
Prof McCall, a world-renowned liver transplant surgeon and gastrointestinal cancer researcher, graduated from the Dunedin medical school in 1982.
He trained as a surgeon in Dunedin and Auckland and was a senior lecturer at the medical school before taking surgery posts in Australia and London.
For the past 10 years, he has worked with the New Zealand Liver Transplant Unit in Auckland, helping to pioneer split, live donor and paediatric liver transplantation in this country.
In Dunedin, Prof McCall will teach surgery at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and will convene the professional development course for fourth, fifth and sixth-year medical students.
He will also carry out general and hepatobiliary (liver and gall bladder) surgery at Dunedin Hospital.
He will continue his work with other Dunedin researchers to develop and patent a gene-based tool for predicting whether colorectal cancer patients are at high or low risk of developing another tumour.
Prof McCall yesterday said he was happy to return to Dunedin, although he would miss carrying out regular liver transplants.
"There will always only be one place in New Zealand where liver transplants are carried out.
"I will still be maintaining links with the Auckland unit though, offering advice and assisting with live-donor transplants."
