The Canadians At Sidcup

Chief amongst the contributors to plastic surgery development at the Queen’s Hospital Sidcup during the First World War were the Canadians.

Shortly after opening in August 1917, as well as being the first multidisciplinary plastic surgery unit in the World, Sidcup also rapidly became an international centre. Having established the concept of a single facial injury hospital, concentrating resources and education in the “Strange New Art” of plastic surgery, Harold Gillies was keen that those teams from the Dominions (today’s Commonwealth) also managing facial injuries at units in Britain, should be brought under the Sidcup umbrella.

The Canadians were already operating at the nearby Ontario Hospital in Orpington, and it was agreed that the dental and surgical staff working there should transfer to Sidcup.  The Canadians were somewhat reluctant initially, but two wards were allocated to their new Section, and a separate operating theatre built for them between wards 7 and 8.

The Section was initially led by Carl Waldron who had qualified first in medicine in 1911, and then in dentistry at the end of the war in 1918. He had pulled strings to jump the queue of Canadian doctors wishing to serve. Initially treating patients at the Westcliff Eye and Ear Hospital he transferred to Orpington. The workload at Sidcup soon became overwhelming for a single surgeon, so he sent for E. Fulton Risdon.

The National Archives of Canada is the only place known to hold records of the Canadian Section servicemen treated at Sidcup. An Admissions Register lists 485 Canadian servicemen. In addition we also know from the British Section clinical records that Gillies team separately treated 52 Canadians. The case files of the Candian Section were recorded as being shipped to the St-Anne-de-Bellevue Hospital in Montreal, where the surgeons were originally based, together with boxes of photographs and X-rays, plus the Section’s baseball kit. But the records have proved untraceable. Recently however, it has become apparent that at least some of the medical details were appended to the ordinary Canadian military records.

Both Waldron and Risdon returned to Canada after the war and continued performing facial surgery, taking much that had been gained from Sidcup with them.  Waldron emigrated to the United States later in the 1920s . Risdon is considered the “father” of Canadian plastic surgery, entering practice in Toronto in 1921, and remaining active for 45 years.