The President of ESOT and the Chairman of the Ambassador Committee have the task to bring to the attention of the ESOT Council potential candidates for Honorary Membership of ESOT, to be awarded during the biannual congress of the Society.
For the first time, at the ESOT Congress in Geneva in 2005, three important nominees in the field of transplantation were awarded the Honorary Membership of ESOT: Professor Sir Roy Calne, the pioneer transplant surgeon, Professor René Küss, one of the world pioneers in kidney transplantation, from Paris, France, who was involved in the first kidney transplantation in Europe and Professor Thomas E. Starzl, pioneer in different fields of organ transplantation, but especially in liver transplantation, and mentor of more than 200 European transplant physicians, surgeons and researchers.
At the Prague Congress in 2007 two prominent transplanters were awarded the Honorary Membership of ESOT: Professor Jon van Rood, the initiator of the Eurotransplant Organization (ET), the first international organ exchange organization in the world, and Professor Masatoshi Makuuchi who was the first in the world who performed a living related liver transplantation between adults, which was the onset of a new era in liver transplantation.
At the Paris Congress in 2009, during the Honorary Membership Celebration on Sunday August 30 two important transplanters: Sir Peter Morris and Professor Christian Cabrol, were awarded the Honorary Membership of ESOT. The laudatio of Sir Peter Morris will be published soon.