Do you believe in miracles?

Today I highlight the life and accomplishments of an Australian woman, small in stature - but large in her capacity for love and hard work.

She has a radiant smile that brightens the world of those with whom she interacts. She's a humble woman who worked what many consider to be miracles, and continues to do so. Her goal is to make a difference. She has made a difference - and continues to do that also.

Before October 12, 2002, Fiona Wood was an unknown doctor. Today, she has been voted one of the most trusted people in Australia, at least six times. A beautiful biography has been written about her, which she has not read, and a television mini-series has been created, which she has not seen – she is too hard-working, and too humble. She is too busy doing what she believes in: making a difference. Yet she is not widely known outside of Australia.

On that horrific day in 2002, on the beautiful tropical island of Bali, in Indonesia, those whose evil minds were hell-bent on destroying life detonated a one-thousand-kilogram bomb. More than 202 people were killed, including eighty-eight Australians.

Twenty-eight victims with horrific injuries and life-threatening burns were flown to Perth in Western Australia, to be cared for by Dr Fiona Wood, who specialised in burns treatments, and headed the Burns Unit of Royal Perth Hospital, Western Australia's major hospital.

As a contrast to the Bali bombers, she’d devoted her life to saving lives. Her compassionate and caring heart was determined to work the necessary miracles. Twenty-five of those lives were saved, some of whom had burns to more than ninety percent of their body.

How? Who is Dr Fiona Wood?

She’d faced ridicule at school for being too studious; she’d faced opposition in wanting to be a doctor. She'd faced rejection during her career when, as a young mother, she wanted to be a surgeon. She pressed on - and became a surgeon.

In 1987 she was refused an entry into plastic surgery because she by then had two small children, and there had never been women plastic surgeons at her hospital.

She became an outstanding “ordinary” surgeon, but persevered in her quest to do plastic surgery. A year later she was accepted as the first female plastic and reconstructive surgery specialist in Western Australia – and she was pregnant again. She continued to pursue her dreams, and moved on and up in her career until she became head of the Burns Unit in 1992.

In 1998 she treated Valerie Sloss who suffered burns to 85% of her body, resulting from a light plane crash. She was not expected to survive. Her “one long nightmare” involved being in a coma for four weeks, with multiple operations by Dr Fiona Wood during that time, and ten months altogether in hospital. The highlight of each day was the visit by a friend – “so reassuring, so competent, so friendly ... a complete godsend”! This friend was her doctor – Fiona Wood.

By 2002, apart from being an outstanding doctor, with a strong emotional connection to each of her patients, she was also a committed scientist, doing extensive and valuable research at night after her (by now six!) very young children went to bed.

She had developed a revolutionary treatment for burns victims: a spray-on skin, created from other cells of the victim’s own body. This new skin layer, sprayed directly onto the wound, was less likely to be rejected than other skin graft methods. Her method also significantly reduced scarring.

With traditional skin grafts it took thirty-five days to grow enough skin to cover extensive burns. Spray-on skin took just five days. Many burns specialists  rejected her radical and revolutionary ideas – but when the Bali attacks horrified the world, her methods were utilized, and succeeded, brilliantly. Each of these survivors has a wonderful story to tell - their own personal miracle.

She became a household name in Australia.

In 2005, Dr Fiona Wood was named Western Australian Citizen of the Year and Australian of the Year. She also now has an Order of Australia. She is a National Living Treasure, and has a multitude of other awards, including, in 2015, the prestigious Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. Yet she remains humble and driven.

In 2007 there was a plane crash in Indonesia. Dr Wood went there herself to care for the  victims. Her compassion for all of humanity knows no bounds.

Twenty years after the Bali bombings, she is as hard-working as ever. She is still developing a multitude of new burns technologies, including 3-D skin printers, and scarless healing cream, as well as intelligent surgical tools. Her passion and energy are boundless.

Today her spray-on skin technique has been used on more than 15 000 patients in more than thirty countries, including the USA, where it was FDA approved in 2018. She is credited with saving and transforming thousands of lives, along with her indefatigable team of surgeons.

She sees her research as a three-pronged process. First it was the physical scarring which directed and drove her research, then the psychological suffering and its long-term effects, but she is now including the long-term physiological scarring, which changes the victim’s susceptibility to other diseases and premature death. A multi-faceted holistic approach to her research.

“What’s driven me through all these decades … is the desire to do better. We will do better! And I will be responsible for that. I will own it.” Her determination to make a difference continues.

She has forged a place for herself in the hearts of all Australians, and a valued place for herself in the history of our nation.

Not bad for a young girl from West Yorkshire, England, born into a family of several generations of coal-miners!

Sometimes, miracles are the result of a combination of very high intelligence, a mind and will devoted to doing good, a deep sense of compassion, empathy and kindness, extreme perseverance, and a willingness to think creatively, combined with hard work.

For all those whose lives have been saved by her, she is indeed a miracle worker.