Dr Rowan Collinson is a locally-trained Colorectal and General Surgeon. He is a Consultant at Auckland City Hospital, and in private practice at the MacMurray Centre, a multidisciplinary Gastrointestinal disorders clinic in Auckland. He undertook post-Fellowship training in Colorectal surgery in Sydney, Australia and Oxford, UK. He is a laparoscopic surgeon and colonoscopist who specialises in colorectal cancer, inflammatory bowel disease and pelvic floor disorders.
Rowan has a particular interest in colorectal disorders of the pelvic floor, including faecal incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse. This includes comprehensive assessment with anorectal physiology and endoanal ultrasound. Treatment is under-pinned by a multidisciplinary approach, and minimally invasive surgical techniques.
He is immediate Past-President of the Colorectal Surgical Society of Australia and New Zealand (CSSANZ), and a member of the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland (ACPGBI).
What is Colorectal Surgery?
The colon and the rectum are part of the digestive tract that processes the food we eat. Together they make up the large intestine or large bowel and are located in the abdomen between the small intestine and the anus. The colon is about 1.8m long and absorbs water and nutrients from food. The rectum is the last segment of the large intestine and is about 20 -25cm long. This is where waste material is stored before it passes out of the body through the anus.
A colorectal surgeon is a general surgeon who has had further training and specialises in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the colon, rectum, and anus.
What is General Surgery?
The role of the general surgeon varies, but in broad terms general surgery can be said to deal with a wide range of conditions within the abdomen, breast, neck, skin and sometimes, vascular (blood vessel) system.
While the name would suggest that the focus of general surgery is to perform operations, often this is not the case. Many patients are referred to surgeons with conditions that do not need surgical procedures, but merely require counselling or medical treatment.
