Patients welcome increased plastic surgery service

2/02/2010

Six-year-old Brayden Warnock-Hannon, who was badly burned in an accident last year, is just one of thousands of patients to benefit from the addition of a plastic surgery service at Dunedin Hospital.

Since it was established three years ago, the service has grown to take on another surgeon and now also treats patients at Southland Hospital so they no longer have to travel to Christchurch.

Brayden's mother, Angela Warnock, of Dunedin, said travelling out of town for treatment was difficult and stressful for families, without the support of other family and friends around them.

Brayden, who was burned from the waist up after his T-shirt caught fire on a stove element when he leaned over a pot of cooking noodles, is likely to need continuing surgery for years, and they were lucky to have the plastic surgery service in Dunedin, Ms Warnock said.

Dunedin plastic and reconstructive surgeon Mr Patrick Lyall said plastic surgery might be a discipline that did not often save lives, but it could make a huge difference to quality of life for patients.

While many people thought of cosmetic surgery when they thought about plastic surgery, that was only a small proportion of his work, which was mostly done in the private sector, Mr Lyall said.

About half his work involved treatment of skin cancer and melanoma, and burns victims.

The remaining 40% included congenital abnormalities, trauma, in particular hand surgery, and reconstructing complicated wounds, such as breast reconstruction following a mastectomy or helping an orthopaedic surgeon "put a broken leg back together".

"Performing breast reconstruction is not going to save anybody's life, but it can make a tremendous difference to how the patient feels about themselves.

"It is a terrible feeling to have cancer.

"It casts a shadow over someone's life.

"To have a physical reminder each time you get undressed can really get to a person."

Plastic surgery was a discipline that came about "from necessity" when thousands of young men began returning to the United Kingdom with mutilating injuries suffered during World War 1.

Surgeons learnt how to move tissue from one area of the body to another and have it survive, enabling them to reconstruct faces that had been horribly disfigured by bullet wounds.

While Dunedin's plastic surgery service is relatively new, the city has a historic connection to this branch of surgery, as two of the founders of modern plastic surgery were born in the city.

The home where Sir Harold Delf Gillies - considered the father of plastic surgery - was born looks down on Dunedin Hospital, and in waiting rooms and wards around the hospital Dr Lyall has discovered pictures of Sir Archibald McIndoe operating in the United Kingdom, which had been painted by his brother in 1945.

The pioneering surgery performed during both world wars enabled soldiers, who could have become socially isolated, to lead normal lives.

Mr Lyall works with fellow plastic and reconstructive surgeon Mr William McMillan, who started with the service four months ago.