Professor Rickard is a surgeon in the Royal Navy and Emeritus Professor of Military Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, a chair that has been continually appointed since the Crimean War. His PhD was in a bioengineering topic related to microvascular surgery and as Professor of Military Surgery he has supervised doctorate students in topics as diverse as the subcellular response to blast and the ethics of live tissue training. Clinically, he specialises in musculoskeletal cancer surgery and in trauma reconstruction. He has broad operational experience in clinical delivery and in leadership roles on operations in the Balkans, Northern Ireland, Iraq, Afghanistan, South Sudan and in support of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
As Hudson Fellow, Professor Rickard is conducting research into the moral philosophy and legal implications of the medical profession engaging in human augmentation for enhanced combat lethality.
