Roger Kirby

Roger Sinclair Kirby FRCS(Urol), FEBU (born November 1950) is a British retired prostate surgeon and professor of urology. He is prominent as a writer on men's health and prostate disease, the founding editor of the journal Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases and Trends in Urology and Men's Health and a fundraiser for prostate disease charities, best known for his use of the da Vinci surgical robot for laparoscopic prostatectomy in the treatment of prostate cancer. He is a co-founder and president of the charity The Urology Foundation (TUF), vice-president of the charity Prostate Cancer UK, trustee of the King Edward VII's Hospital, and from 2020 to 2024 was president of the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM), London.

Following his medical education and training at St John's College, Cambridge, and Middlesex Hospital, London, and with a distinction in surgery, Kirby took various surgical posts across England. In 1979 he gained fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. His early research involved looking at how nerves work to control the muscles used to control passing urine, findings of which disproved the then held belief that retention of urine in some women was psychological, and work that contributed to gaining his MD in 1986. In the same year, he was both elected Hunterian professor with his lecture titled "The Investigation and Management of the Neurogenic Bladder", and appointed consultant urologist at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London. He later took over from John Wickham and subsequently became one of the first urologists in the UK to perform open radical prostatectomy for localised prostate cancers. In 1995, he became a professor of urology and Director of Postgraduate Education at St George's Hospital, London, and in 2005 he established The Prostate Centre in Wimpole Street, London, with the purpose of offering minimally invasive laparoscopic prostatectomy with a more holistic approach, advising on a wide range of men's health, including diet and exercise.

An advocate of monitoring one's own personal PSA level and having spent his surgical career researching and treating prostate cancer, he was diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer himself in 2012, and featured in the 2013 "Tale of Four Prostates", where he was one of four surgeons who freely discussed the diagnosis, treatment and its implications, with the aim of dispelling its surrounding taboos.

Roger Kirby was born in Buckinghamshire to Janet Hazel Sturgess, born in Aston, Warwickshire, and Kenneth Stanley Kirby, born in Whitby, Yorkshire. His father was a professor of biochemistry and fellow of the Royal Society who worked as head of cell chemistry at what was then called the Chester Beatty Research Institute. He died in 1967 at the age of 49, when Kirby was 17. He attended Berkhamsted School for Boys with his older and younger brother, where the three also played on the school's rugby team.

Kirby graduated in medical sciences from St John's College, Cambridge, in 1972 and completed his clinical training at the Middlesex Hospital (later merged with University College), where he was inspired by lead urologist Richard Turner-Warwick. He gained his MB BChir from Cambridge in 1975, with a distinction in surgery, the decisive turning point that led him towards surgery rather than cardiology.

Kirby's first house job was at the Cheltenham General Hospital, where he worked with surgeon Peter Boreham, who encouraged him to pursue the field of urology and particularly prostate disease. Subsequently, he took up posts at Brighton, Wolverhampton, and Gloucester. His other teachers have included Ken Shuttleworth and Wyndam Lloyd Davies. He passed in the final Fellowship of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons in 1979. Kirby later described how a number of people in the 1970s had not heard of the prostate gland. During this time, he had attended to a number of people with large prostates that blocked urine flow and a number of people with inflammation of the prostate, which caused pain. When he did see someone with prostate cancer, only two basic surgical options were available on offer: removing the testicles or an operation that removed the middle of the prostate, the latter being performed to improve the flow of urine.

In 1985, Kirby spent five weeks at the Duke University Medical Center, North Carolina, USA, on a Royal College of Surgeons travelling scholarship. Earlier, as a research fellow at the Middlesex, he met Clare Fowler and together they published research articles on how nerves work to control the muscles used to control passing urine, work that formed the basis of both Fowler's future contributions to continence issues in people with neurological conditions, and Kirby's doctoral thesis. In 1986 they published their findings that disproved the then widely held belief that retention of urine in some women was psychological or hysterical. The condition came to be known as Fowler's syndrome and has been found to be potentially treatable. In the same year he gained his MD from Cambridge, and was elected the Hunterian Professorship with a lecture titled "The Investigation and Management of the Neurogenic Bladder". It was published in the Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, where Kirby showed how the use of EMG could distinguish between people with pelvic nerve injury, distal autonomic neuropathy, progressive autonomic failure– multiple system atrophy, and idiopathic Parkinson's disease, thus influencing the selection of people for surgery via the urethra. In 1986, as the PSA test was coming into use, Kirby was also appointed consultant urologist at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, and later took over from John Wickham.

Kirby subsequently became one of the first urologists in the UK to perform open radical prostatectomy for localised prostate cancers. After watching American urologist Patrick C. Walsh at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, perform open radical prostatectomies for prostate cancer, while simultaneously preserving pelvic nerves, he became a staunch advocate of the procedure. In 1995, he became a professor of urology and director of Postgraduate Education at St George's Hospital, London. By 2005, using a suprapubic transverse incision, Kirby was performing around 130 of these operations a year. Most of these procedures were performed with colleague and anaesthetist Peter Amoroso.