Nigel Sacks
Nigel Philip Michael Sacks FRACS, FRCS (ENG HON), FACS
General Surgeon
23 March 1957 - 7 July 2017
Nigel Sacks FRACS, FRCS (Eng Hon), FACS died Friday 7 July in Melbourne. Nigel was a member of BreastSurgANZ and a Consultant Breast and Oncoplastic Surgeon at Maroondah Breast Clinic and Eastern Health, and Senior Lecturer at Monash and Deakin Universities.
He was also my friend and teacher for more than 25 years and I will miss him dreadfully.
A University of Melbourne graduate (1980), Nigel trained in surgery first at the Royal Melbourne and later in the UK in Nottingham, Oxford and Guilford. He was appointed consultant surgeon to the Royal Marsden Hospital in 1990 at age only 33, which is where I first met him. His extraordinary surgical skills, sharp brain, love of art and great love of life made him an ideal teacher of us young surgeons (well only just younger than him!). Nigel was a great innovator being one of the first to adopt reconstructive surgery and in 1997 sentinel node biopsy. I have just done a therapeutic reduction mammoplasty this morning in Perth-a procedure Nigel taught me back in the early 1990s.
Nigel spent nine months in Pakistan in 2008 setting up breast services at the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital founded by Imran Khan, and during that time walked to K2 - a journey my son is setting out on actually today amazingly, after advice from Nigel.
Nigel then returned to Australia in 2010, first to Adelaide, then in 2013 back to Melbourne. He re-met and married the love of his life Prof June Corry. Nigel leaves three beautiful daughters in the UK, and our heartfelt condolences go out to all of his family and friends.
Christobel Saunders FRACS