Rate My Professor Konrad Richter

Professor Konrad Richter is a Clinical Professor and Associate Dean (Southland) in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Otago, affiliated with the Department of Surgery and Critical Care in Dunedin. As a clinically active Consultant General and Colorectal Surgeon, Surgical Oncologist, and Endoscopist at Southland Hospital, he holds qualifications including MD, PhD, EBQS (Oncol.), CSSANZ, and FRACS. His 30-year professional career in surgery and academia includes a three-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Arkansas Cancer Research Centre in Little Rock, USA, following surgical training and PhD defense. He then completed three years of subspecialty training in surgical oncology and visceral surgery at the University Friedrich-Schiller in Jena, Germany. Richter moved to Southland in 2007, assumed the role of Associate Dean at the Southland Hospital Campus in 2012, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2015 and full Professor in 2023. His clinical interests focus on colorectal surgery, advanced minimally invasive surgery, and gastrointestinal cancer surgery.

Richter's research encompasses basic science, clinical, and translational studies on carcinogenesis, colorectal cancer, molecular and cellular radiation enteropathy, palliative medicine, and hospice care. He has authored book chapters on surgical oncology and palliative surgery, along with peer-reviewed publications such as 'Risk factors for adverse outcome for elderly patients undergoing curative oncological resection for gastrointestinal malignancies' (Lim et al., Visceral Medicine, 2017), 'Palliativmedizin und Hospizbewegung Down Under: Palliation in Australien und Neuseeland' (Richter et al., Onkologe, 2016), 'Herausforderungen der palliativen onkologischen Chirurgie' (Richter & Wedding, Onkologe, 2015), and 'Twin sisters with perforated sigmoid diverticulitis support heredity in the pathogenesis of diverticular disease' (Winder & Richter, International Journal of Colorectal Disease, 2016). He has received numerous teaching awards and has been influential in developing the Invercargill Teaching Hospital into a vibrant academic campus. Richter is passionate about teaching, research, volunteering in the South Pacific, and serving as a ship’s doctor and lecturer in the Pacific, Arctic, and Antarctic regions.