Surrey Research Park welcomes Europe’s first veterinary surgical oncology fellows

A fellowship created and led by AURA’s Clinical Director, a Professor of Surgical Oncology at the University of Surrey, marks a real step forward in advanced animal cancer surgery training in Europe, and, ultimately, in what surgeons can offer their patients.

AURA Veterinary, based at Surrey Research Park, has welcomed the first two Fellows to its new Surgical Oncology Fellowship at its hospital in Guildford. Dr Nadine Schneider (pictured middle right) and Dr Catrina (Cat) Pennington (middle left) are believed to be the first veterinary surgical oncology fellows appointed anywhere outside North America, a milestone both for AURA, the University of Surrey and for the specialty across Europe. Both fellows take up their posts this autumn.

The two-year programme was created and is overseen by Professor Nick Bacon, Clinical Director at AURA Veterinary and Professor of Surgical Oncology at the University of Surrey (pictured above left).

An American College of Veterinary Surgeons (ACVS) Founding Fellow of Surgical Oncology, Professor Bacon is the only ACVS-certified Fellow of Surgical Oncology working in the UK. It is that dual role; leading a high-volume oncology hospital while holding a chair at the University Veterinary School, that gives the Fellowship its character: a clinical programme with genuine academic weight.

For Professor Bacon, it addresses a real need: how to pass that training on and build the next generation of cancer surgeons within Europe rather than sending them overseas to train.

The programme is deliberately academic in character. Fellows train not only as surgeons but also as clinician-researchers: the two years include protected time for research and study, a formal expectation of scholarly output, and support to present that work at international meetings.

The aim is to strengthen the evidence base on which cancer surgery is built, and to make Guildford a place where that evidence is generated as well as applied.

That ambition reflects thinking that has been developing between the University od Surrey and AURA for more than a decade: a cancer hub in Guildford that links specialist clinical care, research and education across veterinary and human health, and encourages the translational thinking that increasingly drives progress in both.

Professor Nick Bacon, Professor of Surgical Oncology, University of Surrey, said:

“Cancer surgery is rarely all about the surgery. It is about judgement, staging, communication and research as much as what happens in theatre.

“This is about paying it forward. I was fortunate to train in a system that took the specialty seriously; my job now is to build that here, so the expertise stays in this country and, through the students and fellows who pass through, spreads well beyond it.”

Dr Nadine Schneider completed her European College of Veterinary Surgeons (ECVS) residency at AURA and has spent the past year as a soft tissue and surgical oncology clinician at the hospital, giving her an established understanding of its caseload, team and patients.

Dr Catrina (Cat) Pennington joins as an ECVS Diplomate and Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) Specialist in Small Animal Surgery, with a strong background in soft tissue and minimally invasive surgery developed across Edinburgh, the Royal Veterinary College and Liverpool. Over the two years, both will work as primary surgeons within AURA’s oncology service, with structured rotations through radiation oncology, medical oncology and oncologic pathology, alongside tumour board participation and teaching responsibilities.

Access to top talent at the University of Surrey

Teaching runs through the whole AURA enterprise. Alongside his clinical and surgical work, Professor Bacon carries formal clinical teaching responsibilities at the University of Surrey, and the Fellowship sits at the senior end of a continuum that begins with undergraduates.

Located on Surrey Research Park, AURA is a short walk from the School of Veterinary Medicine and routinely hosts Surrey students for clinical rotations. Distinctively, the hospital also welcomes extra-mural studies (EMS) students during the university holidays and opens these placements to students in all Surrey year groups, versus only those in their final year at other veterinary schools.

For a student considering a career in surgery or oncology, that means hands-on exposure to a high-volume cancer caseload years earlier than is usually possible; for the Fellows, it means learning in an environment where teaching is part of the culture.

Professor Bacon is joined on the programme by Dr Laurent Findji (pictured right), an ECVS-boarded specialist in small animal surgery, as a core supervisor. Their combined experience means the Fellows are supervised across the full breadth of oncologic surgery.

The Fellowship reflects a shared vision to shape specialist veterinary oncology in the UK and to develop the surgeons who will lead it, part of a broader ambition to make the Surrey Research Park a leading hub for veterinary oncology in Europe.

For the patients who ultimately benefit, it means more surgeons who are better trained and closer to home.