Christina Fleming is a Consultant General and Colorectal Surgeon at the University of Limerick Hospital Group (2022) and Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor at University of Limerick. She is current Chair of the RCSI Early Career Surgical Network. Her clinical area of expertise are robotic colorectal surgery, in particular colorectal cancer and disorders of evacuation. Academically, Christina has a strong research portfolio, recognized by national and international research awards. Her research has mostly focused on colorectal cancer, robotic surgery and surgical training. She delivered the 2024 RCSI Millin Lecture entitled ‘Future-proofing surgical training’.

A 2011 medical graduate of University College Cork with first class honours she undertook basic and higher surgical training in general and colorectal surgery in Ireland and was awarded FRCSI in 2020 and CCST in 2021. During this time, she completed a Masters in Surgery, MCh (RCSI), basic science PhD (UCC) and qualifications in human factors and clinical leadership. Following this, she completed a European Society of Coloproctology (ESCP) robotic colorectal surgery and advanced pelvic malignancy fellowship at the University of Bordeaux, France supported by an RCSI PROGRESS Fellowship.

An early adopter of robotic surgery in her surgical training, Christina has experience in advocating for streamlining access and delivery of robotic surgery and in particular building sustainable models of surgical training to prepare the future work force for both robotic surgery and other emerging technologies. She has widely published on robotic surgery training and outcomes-based and innovation-based research relating to robotic colorectal surgery. She has been involved in a number of robotic surgery expert groups and guideline developments. Christina is currently the General Surgery Lead on the RCSI National Robotic Surgery Leads group who recently developed the first national governance guideline in robotic surgery ‘Robotic Surgery Governance in Ireland: A Guide to Good Practice’.