PGM's Address to Royal College of Surgeon

'This page has been approved by the United Grand Lodge of England’

February 2003

PRESENTATION ON BEHALF OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND

Following the Convocation of Grand Chapter on 13.02.2002 there was an illustrated presentation on the work of the Freemasons' Research Fellows supported by the 250th Anniversary Fund of the United Grand Lodge of England.

M.E PRO FIRST GRAND PRINCIPAL: Ladies, Gentlemen and Companions, I am very pleased to welcome here today Professor Sir Peter Morris, President of The Royal College of Surgeons. He is accompanied by Research Fellows and other interested parties who are to give us a brief insight into the type of work being sponsored by the 250th Anniversary Fund. Without further ado I hand over to Professor Sir Peter Morris.

PROFESSOR SIR PETER MORRIS: Lord Northampton and Gentlemen, firstly let me say, on behalf of the College, how grateful we are for your support to our research programme. There are two schemes: one which supports Research Fellows for one or more years on projects related to surgery, and the other which provides a grant to newly appointed Consultants or Senior Lecturers holding Honorary Consultant status which we call 'Pump-Priming Grants'. These grants are intended to assist in getting their research off the ground so they are in a better position to approach some of the bigger funding bodies such as the Medical Research Council or the Wellcome Trust.

You are going to hear two presentations from young surgeons in training and one from a Senior Lecturer in Paediatric Surgery, who has one of our Pump-Priming Grants. Presentations like this have been made to a number of Lodges during the past year and several more are planned for this year.

We spend about £1.5 million per year which comes from endowments, generous benefactions and many individual donations. We feel it is a very important part of our activities. When you consider all the remarkable developments that have occurred in surgery over the last fifty years, all have arisen from research. If you want a state-of-the-art medical or surgical system, you have to have a very active research system and you might believe that there is enough money from the Medical Research Council or the big charities; but in fact there is never enough and that is why this unique scheme is being copied by the American College of Surgeons, the German Surgical Society, and many more.

There followed three presentations :

A TALE OF BROKEN HEARTS Miss Joanna Chikwe, FRCS, RCS Research Fellow

INSECTICIDES- THE FARMERS' FRIEND OR FOE? Mr. Arthur Stephen, FRCS, RCS Freemasons' Research Fellow

TOWARDS PREVENTING A FATAL GUT DISEASE IN NEW-BORN BABIES Mr. Anthony Lander, FRCS, Pump-Priming Grand holder

ME PRO FIRST GRAND PRINCIPAL: Ladies, Gentlemen and Companions, I am sure you would like me to thank Sir Peter Morris and the Research Fellows for such an interesting and enlightening talk. Freemasons are very generous: we give away a lot of money every year to charity - I think it is approximately 100 million in the last five years. This is a fund which was started in 1967 which very few of us know anything about. It is nice to see that our money is being put to such good causes. Thank you very much.