Reflections on a career in Wound Healing

Abstract

My interest in wound healing started when I was a Medical Student at the University of Birmingham, England looking for a project to undertake as part of my final year course where I was expected to undertake a research project. The Professor of Surgery at the University and other senior academic surgeons were concerned that low-dose Heparin which had recently been developed as a prophylaxis for thromboembolic disease may have had an impact on healing of their surgical wounds. I therefore spent three months doing colonic anastomoses and skin wounds in rats to prove that low-dose Heparin did not have an adverse effect on healing of wounds and help dispel the anxiety that senior surgeons working at that time had around this new innovation in clinical practice.