Review of Forum 2006 by delegate Liz Gill.
I knew I'd arrived at the Forum venue when the taxi pulled up outside the lovely Victorian Westcliff Hotel, Westcliffe on Sea and rather than the sound of the waves I heard Steve Worrillo ordering his next round of drinks!.
Keith and Siobhan Thomas hosted and presented the 3rd International Facial & Body Prosthetics Conference and the first one at which 'free paper' presentations have been held. The format of this programme was refreshingly different from others I'd attended in that throughout the lectures there was the opportunity to question the presenters at any time. This resulted in many a quick fire open question session between Keith, Steve Gray, Stephan Kritzinger and Julie Jordan Brown whilst the delegates hastily made notes. A real think tank of ideas; it was great fun.
What was so special about this Forum is that people approached things in a very different way using a variety of materials with excellent results. Things were presented in real detail, in fact it is a condition of the lecturers that they do so.
All the presentations were outstanding however my personal favourites were Julie Jordan Brown's, Chandrashekar Chawan's custom made ocular prosthesis in that he was working within a limited resources and budget, and Kuldeep Raizada's innovative method of curing an artificial eye prosthesis using PMMA cured in 12 minutes leaving no residual monomer. I intend to contact him for further details.
Graham Blackbeard & Heather Coombes bio engineering presentation was fascinating and of course they also had a trade stand so we got to play with all the hardware, Graham 's had a colourful career to date including working on the first cochlear implants and designing heart valves prior to his involvement with Southern Implants. The Branemark centre in Johannesburg uses Southern Implants and I believe that Branemark himself gives great credence and respect to Southern Implants.
Wendy Smith introduced the Breast Dressed Programme, which included various techniques of custom breast construction. I found this of particular interest and would hope that it will encourage more female MPT's to offer this worthwhile service within their units; much more cost effective girls as we don't need a chaperone; her impression technique of using plaster bandage then instructing the patient to put on a bra was a great idea (no I hadn't tried this). The silicone was applied using the drip technique in layers enabling the easy insertion of colour and internal veins within the underlying layer. The prosthesis were filled with foams, fibres and occasionally gels resulting in a lightweight comfortable prosthesis.
Some prosthesis were then tattooed with a design of the patients choice, Wendy commented that this was the one decision the patient could make for herself, almost a way of turning trauma into art. Fantastic stuff.
This lecture was further enhanced by Siobhan Thomas's presentation on surgical tattooing and cosmetic camouflage and the presence of Dawn Forshaw's trade stand 'Finishing Touches' who, since their formation in 1993 are now regarded as Britain's leading specialists in the field of micro pigmentation. Several members have a well established service within this field namely Jane McPhail at Wiston, Liverpool and Matt Pilley in Leicester; Dawn offers customised training for all areas of medical tattooing within Trust Hospitals and adds that an increasing number of plastic surgeons will no longer perform breast reconstruction without being able to provide NAC procedures to finalise the treatment. In the same vein medical tattooing for cleft palate patients offers an immediate aesthetic answer by recreating the vermillion border.
We all face an uncertain future given the NHS's current financial status and I see medical tattooing as one way of enhancing our existing service subsequently resulting in a profitable income generation scheme for our laboratories. It's certainly worth investigating; Dawn may be contacted on www.wakeupwithmakeup.co.uk Having just read their advanced course literature I'm debating whether to have the wrinkle therapy treatments!
Christian Camerer deserves a mention regarding the miniaturised actuation systems for active prosthesis (real time eye blinking), and although it has a limited application, it is a remarkable piece of research.
Jan De Cubber described a completely new technique for the production of facial prosthesis (direct modelling in high consistency HV, ETR silicones) and the development of the functional joint mechanism, and modular joint mechanism using the Southern Implant system. This is real cutting edge research and I hope delegates appreciated how fortunate they were to see these discussed in detail.
We were treated to three days of pleasant company, lovely surroundings, great food and a wealth of presenters who rarely step out of their own country, and, should Keith elect to organise the 4th Forum then I can highly recommend it to everyone. For those who were unable too attend, Keith has written a new textbook The Art of Clinical Anaplastology, containing detailed information, state of the art materials and techniques used to create high quality facial and body prosthesis. It's written in a clear, concise and easy manner and is presented as a manual for easy reference to each particular subject. With 362 pages and over 900 colour illustrations, 19 detailed chapters this A4 sized book is well priced at £105.00. For further information please access the website on :
www.theartofclinicalanaplastology.moonfruit.com.
Liz Gill
October 2006
