Dr. Cotton is Medical Director of the Digestive Disease Center, Professor of Medicine, and Assistant Dean for International Activities at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.

He was born in 1939 in England, where his father was a rural family physician.  He graduated in 1963 from Cambridge University and St. Thomas Hospital Medical School (London).  He developed the Endoscopy Laboratory at St. Thomas’ Hospital while still officially in training, and brought ERCP back from Japan in 1971.  In 1973 he was appointed to the faculty of the Middlesex Hospital and Medical School (London) as Director of Gastroenterology, where he developed a new department integrating medical and surgical gastroenterology, with an emphasis on endoscopic therapy and teaching.  His group pioneered many diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopy procedures, particularly ERCP (sphincterotomy and stenting) and was very active in teaching.  He attracted postgraduates from many countries, held numerous teaching courses, and pioneered live CCTV workshops.

Dr. Cotton left England in 1986 to become Professor of Medicine and Chief of Endoscopy at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.  He developed a state of the art endoscopy center.  He maintained his interests in teaching (mainly through live video courses), new techniques, and careful outcome evaluation.  He moved to Charleston, South Carolina in 1994 to initiate the Digestive Disease Center.

The mission of the Digestive Disease Center is to provide multidisciplinary patient-friendly, cost-effective patient care, and to pursue the research and teaching necessary to enhance it.  The diverse and international team develops new techniques, and is dedicated to their scientific evaluation.  This work includes emphasis on consensus definitions of patients, lesions, intervention and outcomes, and their incorporation in electronic databases.

Dr. Cotton has been active in many national and international organizations, and has given invited lectures and demonstrations in 47 countries.  He helped form the British Society for Digestive Endoscopy, and served the British Society of Gastroenterology as its vice president and treasurer.  He was secretary of the European Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, and president of the Pancreatic Society of Great Britain.  He was elected Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (London) in 1978, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons (Glasgow) in 1997, and Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (London) in 2002.  He is an honorary member of the British Society of Gastroenterology, the Hong Kong Society for Digestive Endoscopy, and the South African Gastroenterology Society.  Dr Cotton was awarded the Rudolph Schindler award of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy in 2004.
 

His bibliography includes 819 publications, including 242 original contributions in peer reviewed journals, and 24 books.  “Practical Gastrointestinal Endoscopy” (co-authored by Christopher Williams) is the standard teaching text, currently in its 5th Edition (with CD-ROMS), and has been translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Korean, and Turkish. He has been on the editorial boards of 12 gastroenterology journals, and was the first international editor of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy.

Dr. Cotton's Curriculum Vitae (PDF Format)*

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