Ben Challacombe

Benjamin James Challacombe (born 1973) is a British professor of urology at Guy's & St Thomas' Hospitals, and at King’s College London, who specialises in the treatment of kidney and prostatic disease using robotic surgery. In 2005, he was part of the team that published the results of a randomised controlled trial of human versus telerobotics in the field of urology and renal transplant, one of the first of its kind.

After qualifying in medicine from Guy's and St Thomas' and completing junior surgical posts, he completed a da Vinci robotic Fellowship at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in 2009. In 2010, he was appointed consultant and pursued a surgical career in the procedure of removing part of a kidney using robotics and proceeded to regularly perform these, robotic radical prostatectomies and Holmium laser prostatectomies.

In 2016, he performed the UK's first live broadcast of the robotic removal of part of a kidney. In 2019, he told his surgical story alongside that of Stephen Fry. In the same year he was awarded the British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS) Karl Storz Harold Hopkins Golden Telescope award.

He has written or co-written over 230 peer-reviewed articles and 30 book chapters, and has been an active fundraiser for The Urology Foundation and Prostate Cancer UK.

Early life

Ben Challacombe was born in 1973 in Greenwich, London, to professor of oral medicine Stephen Challacombe and general practitioner Tina Challacombe.

Between 1986 and 1991, he attended Dulwich College before opening a year as a 2nd Lieutenant in 29 Commando Regiment, Royal Artillery

In 2004, he gained a place on the surgical South Thames Training Scheme, which placed him at the William Harvey Hospital, the Kent and Sussex Hospital, and then at the Darent Valley Hospital. He gained his FRCS (Urology) in 2008.

In 2010, he was appointed to Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital, shortly before being also appointed as surgeon at the Prostate Centre, London, and pursued a surgical career in the procedure of removing part of a kidney using robotics and proceeded to regularly perform these. He has since also regularly performed robotic radical prostatectomies and Holmium laser (HoLEP) prostatectomies. Other robotic surgery he has been involved in include nephroureterectomy, pyeloplasty and adrenalectomy. He teaches robotics and HoLEP and runs the robotic fellowship programme at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and teaches at the British and European Annual Urology meetings. In this respect, he has encouraged his students to spend some time playing wii.

World robotic surgery education In 2016, as part of "world robotic surgery education", he performed the first live broadcast of a robotic partial nephrectomy in the UK, while listening to music. This helped him manage his time and track his surgical procedure by giving crucial auditory cues, reporting that "you basically have a maximum 30-minute window to remove a cancerous tumour from a kidney. The traditional way is for someone to call out the time, but that's distracting and quite stressful. With the music, I know where I am without that".

In this live webcast, he used a playlist comprising Coldplay's "Viva la Vida" and "Princess of China", followed by "So Far Away" by Dire Straits and then "Burn" by Ellie Goulding and "Just Give Me a Reason" by Pink. The sixth and last song on the playlist was "Stop Crying Your Heart Out" by Oasis, the onset of which would have indicated that time was over: "I don't ever want to hear the Oasis song", he reported.

Prostate surgery Since 2018, he has increasingly taken over the work of prostate surgeon Roger Kirby. It was published in Nature Reviews Urology in an article titled "Both sides of the scalpel: the patient and the surgeon view".

In 2020, he was interviewed by his cousin Rupert Cox, on testicular cancer and the treatment of England and British Lions rugby player Alex Corbisiero. During the COVID-19 pandemic in London, he described his robot as having been furloughed, eventually returning to work when the one tonne machine was transferred from Guy's to an adjacent private facility where surgery could recommence.

Awards In 2009, Challacombe was awarded the Rowan Nicks UK and Ireland Scholarship from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, offered annually to a young surgeon with potential leadership skills.

In 2019, he was awarded the British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS) Karl Storz Harold Hopkins Golden Telescope award, In May 2021, he delivered the Edwin Stevens Lecture.

Charity work Challacombe is on the board of trustees for The Urology Foundation charity and lectures for the charity Prostate Cancer UK.

He is a trustee of Penguins Against Cancer, the charity arm of Guy's, King's and St Thomas' RFC.

Selected publications Articles

Books The Big Prostate. Springer, London, 2017. (Co-editor) The Management of Small Renal Masses: Diagnosis and Management. Springer, 2018. (Co-editor)