Fiona Wood: Plastic surgeon a Bali bomb hero

Fiona Wood, the plastic surgeon who operated on 28 victims of the 2002 Bali bombing, is being recognised with an honorary Officer of the Order of Australia.

Fiona Wood, the plastic surgeon who operated on 28 victims of the 2002 Bali bombing, is being recognised “for distinguished service to plastic and reconstructive surgery, to medical research, and as clinician scientist and mentor”.

Dr Wood, the director of the Burn Injury Research Unit at the University of WA, and a Winthrop Professor in its School of Surgery, will be an honorary Officer of the Order of Australia (AO).

One of the standouts in her prolific career is her role in the invention of “spray-on skin”, known as ReCell, which uses samples of a patient’s skin and can be sprayed on to a burn site and more easily cultured to surrounding tissue.

Dr Wood developed the technology in her own time, before bringing it to market in 1993.

It was integral in the treatment of those who suffered severe burns in the Bali bombing.

“There’s a lot of aspects of what I’ve done over the years that I’m proud of,” Dr Wood said. “There are certain patients whose journey are a standout for all sorts of reasons. (When) they come through at the end and they walk out of the hospital, that’s a proud moment for the team. At that level, there’s that sort of individual feeling of a job well done.

“This is a serious amount of recognition for the work we’ve done over a very long sustained period of time.”

The prolific medical practitioner and inventor has been a member of the Order of Australia since 2003, was awarded West Australian Citizen of the Year in 2003 and 2004, and was the 2005 Australian of the Year.

Dr Wood’s career in Australia began after she migrated to Perth from the UK in 1987.

Her career spans 7095 citations in academic works and more than 300 research papers of her own. While the architect of Australian plastic surgery was enthusiastic about emerging tech­nologies in the field, her greatest interest was in supporting practitioners now entering the field.

“One of the significant focuses for me at the moment is how do these (advances) keep going? It keeps going through people,” she said. “So supporting those youngsters coming up, and making sure that they’re in a space where they can explore their boundaries and add to the body of knowledge is really important to me.

“We have got one of the best health systems in the world. Could it be better? Absolutely. But there’s an awful lot of us working very hard to make sure it is.”