Mirror Mirror Series: Fiona Wood

This time around we’re gonna peel back the layers of the Order of Australia medalist Doctor Fiona Wood.

Fiona was born on the 2nd of February 1958 in Yorkshire England.

Twenty years later she was already blazing trails being one of only twelve women admitted to the learned halls of St. Thomas’ Hospital Medical School. She graduated in 1981 with an MD., BS. 6 Years later she immigrated to Perth with her family and began training to become a plastic surgeon.

In 1995 the culmination of years of collaborative genius with medical scientist Marie Stoner were brought to a head, when a new treatment method for burns victims was launched. Cellspray® is a spray on solution of skin cells, rather than the previous method of using sheets of skin.  Wood and Stoner founded Clinical Cell Culture (C3) in 1999.  Further developments have shortened the length of time needed to produce the spray on skin from 21 days to only 5. With such advanced exploration of tissue engineering, Wood has been recognized as a pioneer in her field.

This pioneering research really came to light after the horrific bombings in Bali in 2002. A large proportion of the survivors were sent to Royal Perth Hospital. Doctor Wood and her team worked tirelessly to save the lives of 28 survivors who suffered badly from burns ranging from 2% to 98% of their bodies, along with delayed shock and deadly infections.

An Order of Australia medal was awarded to Doctor Wood in 2003, and she was named Australian of the year in 2005. For her contribution to medicine in the field of burns research a Western Australia Citizen of the Year award found its way into Doctor Wood’s possession; but this would all be placed aside in March 2007 after a crash landing of Garuda Indonesia Flight 200, when Fiona assisted in the emergency response to burns victims.

Readers Digest named Doctor Wood as Australia’s Most Trusted Person from 2005 to 2010.

Doctor Fiona Wood looks like she is going to be collaborating and continuing to blaze trails with the treatment of burns for many years to come. Branching perhaps into neurophysiology (the science of the nervous system) and how bone marrow aids in healing.

Hope has been handed to many burns victims who would have little chance of surviving prior to the mid 1990’s. This, in my opinion, makes Doctor Fiona Wood one of Australia’s most treasured people.

Sources

http://www.science.org.au/scientists/interviews/w/wood.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiona_Wood