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Sir Louis Barnett CMG
Sir Louis was born in Wellington and was the first surgeon from Aotearoa New Zealand (AoNZ) to gain a Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He returned to AoNZ to a lectureship at Otago Medical School and in 1909 was appointed professor of surgery at Otago. He was awarded the CMG for his services in WW1 and was knighted in 1927 after his retirement from the chair of surgery.
In the 1920s Sir Louis was instrumental in the formation of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (initially known as the College of Surgeons in Australasia). In 1927, at the College’s inaugural meeting, held in Dunedin, he was elected the first vice president. He later became president of this College from 1937 to 1939.
Sir Louis was a pioneer in hydatid’s research, continuing this work after his retirement from Otago Medical School. He was influential in the establishment of the College’s hydatid register and was also prominent in the British Empire Cancer Campaign. He endowed the Ralph Barnett Chair in Surgery at Otago Medical School, in memory of his son who was killed in WW1.
Call for abstracts
Abstracts for the Louis Barnett Prize are called on an annual basis, usually in the second-half of the year. The Prize is traditionally judged during the AoNZ annual surgeons' meeting (ASM) held in September.
Valued at $2,500, the prize is targeted at young surgeon scientists. Applications for the prize are open to Trainees or Fellows within the first five years of their Fellowship, AND:
- a citizen of Aotearoa New Zealand, OR
- have permanent resident status for Aotearoa New Zealand.
The research may have been done either within or outside AoNZ; within or outside a department of surgery; and before or after commencement of surgical training. Only one abstract will be accepted per submitter.
Conditions and procedure
- Only one abstract will be accepted per submitter.
- All correctly submitted abstracts will be subject to a blind evaluation by a panel of three adjudicators who will select the best papers, up to a maximum of eight.
- Those selected papers will be presented together in a session at the College’s AoNZ annual surgeons' meeting or in a standalone event.
- The presentations are adjudicated by a panel that will include at least one professor of surgery. Adjudicators should preferably be neither a supervisor of nor contributor to the papers being adjudicated. The adjudicators for the blind evaluation and the presentations need not necessarily be the same.
- Adjudication of the abstracts will take into account: complexity of the project, quality of the science, relevance of the project, clarity of the abstract and the amount of work by the submitter.
- Adjudication of the presentations will take into account: introduction, method, clarity, audiovisual presentation and ability to defend the paper in discussion.
- Presentations will be for eight minutes with up to two minutes for questions.
- No award will be made if, in the opinion of the adjudicators, no paper is of sufficient merit.
Submitting abstracts
All abstracts should be original research.
General specifications are:
- Word document only. Please do not use presentation software such as PowerPoint.
- Length: 350 words or less, excluding title, presenter(s) and department.
- Single spaced text with justified margins.
- 11 pt Arial font.
- Number of authors to be limited to no more than seven.
- Do not indent paragraphs.
- All abstracts must be submitted in English.
Abstracts should contain the following:
- Title: sentence case, bold.
- Authors/presenters: sentence case. Show initial and then surname only. Presenter's name underlined with asterisks used in conjunction with the department and institution.
- Department and institution of all authors/presenters: sentence case.
- Body of abstract: sentence case.
The body of the abstract should include these headings in bold:
- Introduction (including the study hypothesis).
- Aims, methods, results, conclusions. It is not satisfactory to state that results will be discussed or data will be presented. References (maximum of two). Abbreviations may be used but must be spelled out in full at the first mention followed by the abbreviation in parentheses.
The covering email should contain:
- A brief explanation of your involvement in the research project.
All abstracts should be submitted by email to the RACS Aotearoa New Zealand office: College.NZ@surgeons.org.