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Dr Shirley Potter
Shirley Potter is a Consultant Plastic & Reconstructive Surgeon at the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, Dublin and Associate Clinical Professor at the School of Medicine, UCD. She is a principal supervisor for the Irish Clinical and Academic Training programme and Co-Chair of the Irish Melanoma Forum.
Dr Potter graduated from NUI, Galway with both a medical degree and an intercalated BSc in Anatomy. Following basic surgical training, she completed her PhD in tumour biology under HRB Clinician Scientist scholarship. Subsequently she completed her specialist training in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery in Ireland and moved to Australia for fellowship training.
Her fellowships were in reconstructive microsurgery at St Vincent’s Hospital and The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, followed by a fellowship in cancer reconstruction at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne. She further developed her interest in reconstructive microsurgery at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taiwan.
Dr Potter has a strong research portfolio having published widely, while also supervising PhD and Masters students under the Wellcome-HRB Irish Clinical and Academic Training program. She runs a Melanoma research group at the Conway Institute, UCD along with collaborators in the Charles Institute, UCD. She was awarded the Irish Cancer Society Clinician Research Leadership Award. Her main research interests are Malignant Melanoma, Advanced Skin Cancer, Head and Neck Cancer, Reconstructive Microsurgery, Surgical Education and Simulation, PPI research. Dr Potter is the Irish Principal Investigator for the MelmarT Melanoma Margins Trial with Cancer Trials Ireland. She has also developed a Melanoma Patient Research Group, with the aim of keeping patients involved in melanoma research.
Dr Potter has also completed a Masters in Medical Education and has a reputation as a surgical educator, with a special interest in microsurgery simulation. She is on the faculty of trainers for core and higher surgical training schemes at RCSI. Dr Potter is keenly involved in undergraduate medical education at UCD, has developed an undergraduate curriculum in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, as well as an online learning platform for medical students at UCD www.materplasticsurgery.com. She is also involved with student surgical societies in both UCD and RCSI.