Melbourne Institute of Plastic Surgery - +61.3.9508.9508

Queen’s Birthday Honours

Graeme Southwick, Director of the Melbourne Institute of Plastic Surgery, was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM), also known as the Queen’s Birthday Honours, one of the highest awards in Australia, for being of immediate medical assistance to the victims of the Bali bombing on 12 October 2002.

“It’s a culmination of 26 years of work for me, and a period which was quite traumatic in my life. It makes me think about all the people I worked alongside. The medal represents a lot of people to me, and I feel I was just part of a big team.” - Graeme Southwick

Read an article published in Melbourne’s newspaper, The Age, entitled, “A Wealth of Toil” to learn more about Southwick’s experience in Bali.

Following his return to Melbourne after assisting in Bali, Mr. Graeme Southwick was interviewed by Kerry O’Brien on the ABC’s 7:30 Report program.

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Introducing Thermage®

At the Melbourne Institute of Plastic Surgery, we are pleased to offer our patients Thermage®, a new, non-invasive skin tightening procedure that has so far produced exceptional results. Face rejuvenation from the Thermage® procedure lasts up to two years, significantly longer than muscle relaxants and fillers. Specialists warn that the treatment may not be effective for a very small percentage of patients. Learn more about this exciting treatment for facial rejuvenation.

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Advanced Plastic Surgery Education Foundation

The Melbourne Institute of Plastic Surgery, through its association with the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at Monash University, is involved with many teaching and research programs. To facilitate these programs, the Advanced Plastic Surgery Education Foundation was founded in 2004. This foundation helps fund teaching and research in plastic surgery and has allowed scientists and plastic surgeons to work together in Australia for the advancement of plastic surgery and the betterment of patient care in Australia.

Medical Education

2004-2005 has been a year during which the foundation has undertaken a keen education role at many levels:

On a weekly basis, final year medical students from Monash University attend clinical sessions including the operating room, where invaluable one-on-one surgical teaching is provided. This gives the students exposure to plastic and reconstructive surgery during their busy training program.

Australia and overseas medical students also undertake a full-time 6-week program with the Melbourne Institute of Plastic Surgery to gain more exposure to plastic and reconstructive surgery, and to perform research.

The foundation supports a 6 to 12 month Advanced Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Fellowship by facilitating research at both a clinical and laboratory level. This is offered to young plastic surgeons in their formative years to enable more advanced training in plastic surgery, while allowing them to take advantage of the many activities taking place at the Melbourne Institute of Plastic Surgery. The fellowship has been popular over the years and has included plastic surgeons from Australia, United Kingdom, Turkey, India, France, New Zealand, U.S.A., Canada, Israel and Brazil.

There have been several publications and presentations by doctors working with the foundation.

The foundation has established a continuing education process for bona fide plastic surgeons. An Advanced Plastic Surgery Workshop is organised annually and all plastic surgeons, plastic surgery trained nursing staff, and trainee plastic surgeons in Australia and New Zealand as well as our Southeast Asian neighbors are invited to attend. International guest plastic surgeons who are experts in their field of interest are invited to participate, and panels of Australasian plastic surgeons contribute to this intense program. These workshops further our understanding and development of new surgical procedures and equipment.

In addition, the foundation organises and facilitates a monthly meeting of advanced plastic surgery trainees to educate them in specific topics of study in plastic surgery. The meetings are held on Tuesday evenings, and selected speakers provide in-depth lectures on selected topics and teach surgical techniques. These have proved very popular and are regularly attended by about 20 plastic surgery trainees.

Furthermore, the foundation supports a Multidisciplinary Specialist Clinic, which brings together various specialists to discuss and solve difficult patient problems. These clinics are held quarterly and are attended by about 14 specialists. Patients have the opportunity to present to the group and have their individual clinical problems discussed.

The foundation supports other educational roles as well. For example, it facilitated the teaching program for “Upper Limb Anatomy” to teach young doctors interested in pursuing a course in surgery.

We are extremely proud of the work done by the foundation to date and look forward to continuing this for many years to come.

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