Dr. Neil Wetzig

Member of the Technical Advisory Council

President, Permanent Council of the G4 Alliance; Emeritus Senior Visiting Surgeon, Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane

Dr. Neil Robert Wetzig is a distinguished Australian surgeon with over four decades of experience in breast and endocrine surgery, global surgery, and surgical education. He is President of the Permanent Council of the G4 Alliance for Surgery, Obstetrics, Trauma and Anaesthesia, and serves as Co-Chair of the WHO/G4 Alliance Operative Encounter Registry Working Group.

Dr. Wetzig completed his medical degree at the University of Queensland (MBBS, 1978) and holds fellowships from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and the College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa (elected 2017). In January 2020, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for his services to the international surgical community, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

His clinical career was anchored at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane, where he served as Senior Visiting Surgeon and Chair of the Breast and Endocrine Unit from 1990 to 2015. He has also maintained long-term roles at Wesley Private Hospital and Mater Private Hospital in Brisbane, where he now holds Emeritus positions.

Dr. Wetzig is internationally recognised for his leadership of the RACS Sentinel Node Biopsy versus Axillary Clearance (SNAC) Trials — landmark randomised controlled trials that reshaped breast cancer surgical management. These trials, for which he served as Principal Investigator, were supported by over AUD 5 million in competitive research funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the National Breast Cancer Foundation, among others.

Since 2015, Dr. Wetzig has served as a Consultant and Adviser of Surgical Training Programmes at HEAL Africa Hospital in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, contributing to the training of surgeons across East, Central and Southern Africa through the COSECSA programme. He is a regular participant at the World Health Assembly and at COSECSA and G4 Alliance annual scientific congresses. His particular areas of surgical interest include global surgery, trauma surgery, endocrine surgery, and breast surgery.