Prof. Thomas Pomfret Kilner

Born 17^th September 1890, Lancashire, UK

Died 2^nd July 1964

Thomas “Tommy” Kilner was one of the original “Big Four” plastic surgeons in the UK and can truly be described as one of its pioneers. Harold Gillies and he established plastic surgery as a separate specialty whilst working at the Queen's Hospital Sidcup during the First World War. Together for a decade following the war they constituted the entire body of British plastic surgeons.

Character

Kilner was a diminutive man whom Gillies initially put into the “Bantam” division, but soon recognised that his punch was “heavyweight”. Although mostly an easy to get along with, friendly person, he was a hard-working disciplinarian and perfectionist with exacting standardds. He demanded similar of those training under him. Whilst possessing a “cool, calm and methodical approach”, T.P.K. as he was known to all, developed a reputation for being “difficult”. Described by one of his own trainees as “short, fat, bad tempered, demanding and colourful”, he nevertheless became a giant in the specialty and is most remembered as a teacher. He was also much loved by his patients, developing a thoughtful approach to, and with them.

Read more about Kilner's personal Life

Life in Plastic Surgery

Like many early plastic surgeons, he had a prodigious work ethic, refusing to drop any commitments he had already taken on. With voluntary sessions at St Thomas’s Hospital, St. Andrews Dollis Hill, Shadwell, and Roehamptom he also spent three of four weekends a month at either Manchester, Birmingham or RAF Alton. A meticulous surgeon, his favourite dictum was “God protect me from the surgeon who changes his plan in the middle of an operation’. A quick operator, who could run rings around Gillies, he also carefully recorded everything, developing his own photographic images and drawing every procedure. Above all, he put patients first.

Kilner also developed many instruments, including a malar retractor and needle holder. Some of his instruments are held by the BAPRAS Collection. His major clinical contribution however – what he described as his “pet subject”- was to the development of children’s cleft lip and palate surgery. He was a particular advocate of the disciplines allied to managing these patients, such as speech therapy. He developed a procedure to repair the palate modified from that devised by Victor Veau in Paris. He also worked closely with his long-time collaborator, WEM Wardill in Newcastle. In all he kept records of 1,200 cleft lip and palate cases. Writing a chapter on cleft lip and palate in the 1954 second edition of Parsons and Barling “Diseases of Infancy and Childhood”, he also contributed a major chapter concerning the management of wounds of the face and jaws in Hamilton Bailey’s “Surgery of Modern Warfare” in 1941. The tragedy was that he wrote so little, despite the urging of colleagues. He essentially failed to capitalise upon his years of experience and meticulous diagrammatic recording of all his procedures undertaken in a formative phase for plastic surgery.

Read More about Kilner's Early professional life

Chair in Plastic Surgery

Kilner was appointed the first Nuffield Professor of Plastic Surgery at Oxford in 1944, developing the unit there. Originally in temporary corrugated roofed “Nissen Huts”, he combed it as a teaching unit with the slightly older department at Stoke Mandeville.  Upon retiring aged 67 he became the “emeritus” Professor. His death, from an aortic aneurysm, was coincidentally announced on the first day of the Association’s 1964 Summer meeting in Oxford that year. He had been planning to attend, and his loss somewhat overshadowed the event.