Rate My Professor Sean Mackay

Dr. Sean Mackay serves as an Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at Monash University, within the Eastern Health Clinical School. As an upper gastrointestinal surgeon, he practices at Eastern Health's Box Hill Hospital and maintains a private practice at Epworth Eastern Private Hospital in Melbourne. His clinical expertise encompasses hepatobiliary surgery, upper gastrointestinal surgery, bariatric surgery, advanced laparoscopic procedures, therapeutic endoscopy, and ERCP.

Mackay earned his MBBS from the University of Melbourne in 1990, became a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (FRACS) in 1999, and obtained his MD from Imperial College London in 2004. His doctoral thesis focused on “The Objective Assessment of Technical Skill in Basic Surgical Trainees.” In 2000, he held the RACS/RCSEng Lumley Fellowship at Imperial College London under Professor Lord Ara Darzi. He is a co-convenor of the Eastern Health Surgical Research Group, which supports research by surgeons and surgical trainees, leading to presentations and publications. Previously, he served on the Eastern Health Research and Ethics Committee. Mackay supervises surgical fellows pursuing higher degrees and contributes to teaching medical students from Monash and Deakin Universities.

His research interests center on the objective assessment of surgical technical skills and surgical education. He has authored 36 publications in peer-reviewed journals. Notable works include "Quality of patient health information on the Internet: reviewing a complex and evolving landscape" (2014, Australasian Medical Journal, 204 Scopus citations), "Endoscopic sphincterotomy with sphincteroplasty for the management of choledocholithiasis: a single-centre experience" (2017, ANZ Journal of Surgery), "Post-oesophagectomy mortality: The centralization debate revisited" (2016, ANZ Journal of Surgery), "Single incision laparoscopic cholecystectomy is associated with a higher bile duct injury rate: A review and word of caution" (2015, Annals of Surgery), and "Monash medical student's foray into surgical research" (2011, ANZ Journal of Surgery). Mackay contributes to surgical training, research, and clinical practice in Australia through his various roles.