Saints and Sinners: Sir Harold Gillies

Abstract

Sir Harold Gillies, commonly known as the 'father of plastic surgery', was certainly considered a saint by his many admirers in Britain, but this polymath also had some quirky traits that did not endear him to everyone. indeed, although he was responsible for founding plastic surgery as a specialty, in later years his preoccupation with the tube pedicle as the primary means of transferring large volumes of tissue may actually have held back the development of the axial pattern, muscle, fascia and microsurgical flaps that were crucial to the discipline.