Who We Are

Professor Fausto Palazzo qualified in 1992 and trained in surgery on the Cambridge and North East London higher surgical training rotations, becoming a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1997. He spent two years as an endocrine surgical research fellow at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London for which he was awarded a Master of Surgery in 2001 from University of London. He trained in endocrine surgery in Oxford, Sydney Australia (T.S Reeve Fellow 2003) and Marseille France (BAES travelling Fellow 2004). He became a an Intercollegiate Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (endocrine subspeciality) in 2003 and was added to the UK Specialist Register in 2004.

Professor Palazzo was appointed consultant endocrine surgeon at Hammersmith Hospital in 2004 and became departmental clinical lead in 2006 after the retirement of Mr John Lynn. Together with Prof Tolley he created the UK’s first cross speciality department of endocrine surgery merging the strengths of an ENT and endocrine surgical background. He has contributed to the restoration of the department’s reputation as the flagship UK department of endocrine surgery with 3 full time consultant endocrine surgeons, with the largest UK clinical practice and an active academic output.

Prof Palazzo lectures undergraduates at Imperial College and postgraduates nationally and internationally. He has published numerous book chapters, in excess of 150 peer reviewed publications on all aspects of endocrine pathology and has contributed to national and overseas guidelines on thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal surgery. He has been on the executive of the British Association of Endocrine & Thyroid Surgeons for a total of 8 years, the UK delegate to the European Society of Endocrine Surgeons for a decade and is currently on the Council of the International Association of Endocrine Surgeons until 2026. He was conferred the title of Professor at Imperial College in 2019.

Miss Di Marco qualified from the University of Cambridge and Guy’s, King’s & St. Thomas’ School of medicine with Distinction in 2004. She undertook house jobs at St. Thomas’ and Basingstoke and basic surgical training in London, including six months dedicated teaching as anatomy demonstrator at Guy’s Hospital under Professor Harold Ellis. She was awarded a covetted ‘run-through’ training post in general surgery in 2006 and subsequently one of the UK’s first Academic Clinical Fellow posts at Imperial, which allowed her to combine research with clinical training during her Higher Surgical Training in North West London.

She undertook a PhD in surgical technology at Imperial, looking at the development of a device for luminal surgery and then specialist training in endocrine surgery at Chelsea & Westminster, the Hammersmith and as the T.S. Reeve Fellow at the Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, Australia.

Miss Di Marco became an Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (endocrine subspecialty) in 2016 having been awarded the ASGBI Gold Medal in the Intercollegiate Specialty Examination.

She took up her post as Consultant at the Hammersmith in 2019. She is an Honorary Senior Lecturer at Imperial College, London. She is the Lead in Anatomy & Diagnostics at Imperial College School of Medicine and the Lead for Surgery in the final years. Miss Di Marco is an expert adviser to NICE on molecular profiling of thyroid cancer.

She was an accomplished athlete, representing Cambridge University Women’s Boat Club in the Women’s Boat Race twice (as club President in 2000) and then turning to triathlon and duathlon in which she represented GB as an age-group athlete.

Professor Neil Tolley completed his undergraduate training and MD in Cardiff, Professor Tolley moved to London in 1988 as registrar to the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital. His post-graduate training was in London, South Africa, Australia and the US. He was accredited as an Ear, Nose and Throat Surgeon in 1992 and appointed ENT surgeon to St Mary’s Hospital in 1994.

Professor Tolley is the pioneer of Robotic Head & Neck Surgery in the UK and has over 250 peer-reviewed publications. He has supervised 7 MSc, 3 MD and 8 PhD students, authored books, written many book chapters and presents frequently at national and international meetings.

Prof Tolley has held several appointments on regional and national committees: member of the SAC, SAC Liaison for the West Midlands, national simulation lead for ENT and member of the BAETS executive.

He is course director for the national ST3 induction course held at Imperial and director for Thames ENT Simulation training and course organiser for the Imperial MSc Surgical Innovation. He holds a twice yearly DOHNS course.

He was conferred Professor at Imperial College in 2016 and is clinical lead at Imperial for ENT-Head & Neck Surgery, Audiology and Oral Surgery and has been conferred sector lead for ENT during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Professor Tolley has visited Egypt and India over several years to teach and perform surgery and is an honorary member of the Indian Society of Thyroid Surgery.

He is a keen sportsman and played at school-boy level for Aston Villa before commencing medical school. He is a master Scuba diver.