BAPSN
Tony Wallace, founder of our Collection and burns surgeon in Edinburgh, came up with the concept of a professional body for nurses working in Plastic Surgery and Burns in 1963.
A first meeting organised to discuss the topic attracted some high-level input, including the Scottish Ministry of health and two senior sisters from Mount Vernon Hospital in Middlesex. The result was a constitution forming the British Association of Plastic Surgery Nurses (BAPSN). Its inception was not without difficulty. Whilst 95% of plastic surgery ward sisters were in favour and many surgeons gave their support, some did not. The RCN objected. They feared “breakaway organisations” may damage nursing professional unity.
The first meeting-proper was held at great Ormond Street Hospital, London later the same year. Lady Gillies, herself a theatre sister, was made President, and the “Chairman” a Miss M. Morriston-Davies. Wallace remained Vice President. The meeting was a great success and it led to the first association newsletter the same year. This grew from the simple duplicated paper copy to a printed magazine by 1973.
Over the next few years plastic surgery units around the country seem keen to offer the association space. Attendance at meetings grew and these consisted of lectures and visits to nearby plastic surgery wards, with social events organised too. The 1965 meeting at Mount Vernon Hospital attracted 88 members from all over the UK. A joint meeting was held with the Dutch and some of their nurses joined. By 1986 there were 400 BAPSN members.
Aims of BAPSN
1. To promote and develop the art or science of nursing patients following plastic surgery, burn trauma and maxillofacial surgery.
2. Encourage and participate in conference meetings and study groups and further into plastic surgery and Burns care expertise.
3. To encourage and promote the interchange of knowledge and ideas between the associations and similar bodies overseas, which are affiliated to the international Federation of plastic surgeons, by arranging and facilitating visits and travel to and from the Commonwealth and foreign countries.
4. Foreman maintain a close liaison with a British Association of Plastic Surgeon to cooperate with them in all matters pertaining to plastic surgery burn care.
The Nefertiti Badge
Following a competition in 1967, a badge was designed. The winner was a depiction of Nefertiti – her status as the personification of perfection being the ideal to aim for in a plastic surgery nurses work. The words “Ad Perfectionem” and the BAPSN initials are inscribed around the margin. The head is actually depicted the “wrong way around”, compared to the classical image. This was simply due to a clerical error in the manufacture. Worn with pride on the uniforms of plastic surgery nurses, these badges remain highly coveted. The Collection does not currently own one.
Prizes
1971 saw the introduction of the “F.I. Herbert Rose Bowl”. A silver bowl in memory of a Shotley Bridge Consultant very supportive of BAPSN,
whose memorial fund endowed the prize for best presentation at the annual meeting. It was first won by Miss M.C. Bromley for a care study on the use of “Halo” fixation in fractures of the jaw. A replica bowl was presented each year to the winner. The whereabouts of the original bowl and any of the replicas is a mystery. Lady Gillies, who had remained a BAPSN stalwart, died in 1991, endowing a £50 prize for the best clinical nursing paper at the annual meeting and paid for by the sale of her engagement ring.
The 1990s saw the re-launch of the BAPSN magazine as the “Nursing TeleGraft” and regional study days introduced. It took 36 years from the formation of BAPSN for there to be a joint meeting with BAPS. Indeed, as membership struggled during the 2010s, the Annual meetings ceased.
Reincarnation
Only in 2019 was a Nurses Education Day resurrected, now as part of the Annual BAPRAS congress. Today, BAPSN lives on as the Nursing section of BAPRAS. Affiliate Nurse Members of the Association are once more part of a network of like-minded professionals, enjoying discounts to meetings and other educational events, including the annual study day at Congress.