I am an ST8 with an interest in minimally invasive colorectal surgery, abdominal wall reconstruction and surgical education. I was the first intercollegiate research fellow of the four UK and Ireland surgical royal colleges and have completed an MSc on ‘High throughput molecular profiling of colorectal cancer’ and a PhD on ‘Predicting performance in UK surgical training’. As the newly appointed regional trainee representative of Scotland I endeavour to represent my peers honestly, impartially and without bias.