Why did Fiona Wood come to Australia?

Answer 1

Dr Fiona Wood am

FRCS, FRACS, B.Sc, MBBS (London University), Hon.DLitt (UWA)

Fiona Melanie Wood was born and raised in a small mining village in Yorkshire, England on the 2nd of February 1958 and is currently 51. As a schoolgirl, she loved sport and was obsessed with athletics. She had hoped to be an Olympic sprinter when she grew up, but when she realised she wasn't good enough, she decided she wanted to make a difference during her lifetime and instead, she became a world famous doctor!

Fiona Wood was the third child out of four children - she had two older brothers and a younger sister. Both Fiona's parents strongly believed that their children should explore their full potential with respect to sport and education, to give them a choice in life.

Her father worked down a mine, but disliked it immensely. He was a great sportsman, a soccer player, but also an academic and had won a scholarship to a Grammar School. However, he wasn't allowed to pursue an education by his family.

At the age of 13, Fiona expressed her wish to attend Ackworth School; an independent Quaker school located in the village of High Ackworth, near Pontefract, West Yorkshire. She used to walk past the school and see the students in their pale blue lined Harry Potter cloaks that went down to the ground. Fiona's mother, a very determined person, knew that the only way they could afford to give her a private education at this school was to send her there as a staff child. She saw a job advertised at Ackworth School as a matron, and she came out of that interview as the PE teacher! Within 6 months, Fiona was attending the school and later became the Head Girl and Highest Scholar of Ackworth School.

Fiona grew up in an austere environment during the coal miner's strike in the 1960's. However, despite the harsh conditions of her childhood, Fiona felt extraordinarily lucky to have such incredible parents who believed that there was something very special worth nurturing in each of their four children. It is this up-bringing that gave Fiona the strength going forward.

There was also a strong sense of community and intellectual curiosity in the mining village culture that Fiona grew up in. The motto of Ackworth School was, "Non Sibi Sed Omnibus" ("Not for One Self but for Others") which also deeply influenced her to engage in the community and to help others.

Fiona was very good with numbers from a very early stage and was fascinated by Maths and Physics. When she was 16, she was interested in doing Maths and Physics at university, but her brother and mother thought Medicine would be better.

Fiona then went on to obtain her medical degree from London University. From the first day, she knew she was going to be a surgeon. She was fascinated by the human anatomy and how a surgeon would be involved in putting all the parts of the body together. She fulfilled that dream by training as a plastic surgeon at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School in London, and graduated from there in 1981. From then, Fiona proceeded to earn a primary fellowship in 1983 and a fellowship in 1985 from the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS).

In 1987, Fiona married Tony Kierath and migrated to Perth with their first two children. In 1990, between having four more children, she completed her training in plastic surgery at the University of Western Australia to become Western Australia's first and only female plastic surgeon. A couple of years later, she became the Head of the Burns Unit at the Royal Perth Hospital.

In 1992, a schoolteacher with petrol burns to 90% of his body arrived at the Royal Perth Hospital and was attended to by Dr. Wood. To save his life, Fiona used a new US-invented technology of cultured skin by working many nights in a laboratory borrowed from scientist, Marie Stoner. They became good friends and started research on skin tissue engineering.

Fiona and Marie spent days in a lab growing sheets of skin and placing it over the burns victim's wounds, but they still weren't happy with the healing results. One night, Fiona joked that they should be able to spray the skin on. It didn't take long until they found themselves at the local chemist, buying every spraying instrument that they could find!

They went on to develop the spray-on skin (CellSprayâ) method which involved taking a small sample of healthy skin cells and growing and feeding them in a lab so they expand. The cells are then collected and sprayed onto the patient's burns while they are still active. Previous techniques used to cure burns required 21 days for the burn to heal; Fiona has decreased the period to five days. From Fiona's research, she found that scarring is greatly reduced if replacement skin can be provided within 10 days.

Fiona patented her spray-on-skin technique and together with Marie, started a company called Clinical Cell Culture in 1993 (C3). The company went public in 2002, and with much of the money it generated being used to fund further research namely the McComb Research Foundation, which she founded in 1999.

The service of culturing small biopsies (taking a sample of skin) and growing it into larger volumes of skin cell suspension, is used by all surgeons in Sydney, Auckland and Birmingham. Cells can be delivered by aircraft and ready for use the next day. C3 has also developed a related product ReCell, a kit that can be used by a doctor in a clinic to harvest skin cells and use them on small burns or wounds.

In October 2002, Fiona became famous for the help she provided in treating the largest proportion of survivors from the Bali bombings at the Royal Perth Burns Unit where she directed. She built and coordinated a team of 60 doctors and nurses to save 28 patients, all who had burns to more than 90% of their bodies. At one stage, this medical team worked continually for five days to save all 28 patients!

In 2003, Fiona received The Order of Australia for the help she gave to relieve the suffering of the Bali bombing victims.

In 2005, Prime Minister John Howard named her Australian of the Year at a ceremony in Canberra.

Besides being the one of the first female plastic surgeons in Europe and Australia, Fiona has encountered many obstacles in her life. She has established and coordinated a team of people to help accomplish her goals (eg. Clinical Cell Culture and the McComb Foundation). She has also had to balance her professional life with the needs of her family -she is a mother of six active children. Fiona has said that the greatest challenge hasn't been her outstanding scientific research, but motherhood. In addition,

Fiona insists any success is down to teamwork and motivation.

"A scar to me isn't its appearance, it's how you move and how you function. There's much more to a scar than people thinking it looks horrible."

Fiona has done many magnificent deeds. By being a plastic surgeon, she helps people every day.