Back To How It Should Be

Doctor chose plastic surgery because of the service it provides

Source: Peoria Journal Star
Date: May 4, 2008

Peoria — Dr. Glyn Jones gravitated to plastic surgery because the essence of cosmetic procedures — reconstructive surgery in particular — contradicts the general concept of surgeons.

The metaphorical scalpel most often is used to take away, to remove disease and dysfunction, to reroute, to correct aberration.

But Jones’ passion lies in the ability to return physical function and sensation, or, at least, form and the day-to-day functionality equated with physical wholeness. In short, he replaces what has been removed.

“(Plastic surgery) is just so varied and interesting, and you always feel like you’re giving back to people,” Jones said. “I think the epitome of that is breast reconstructive surgery for someone who has lost a breast to cancer.”

Jones, who has been with Peoria Surgical Group for nearly a year, began his career as a surgeon in Zimbabwe, then known as Rhodesia, during his early formal training in general surgery. His father immigrated to the southern African nation from the United Kingdom, and Jones was born and raised there.

His early days as a physician and surgeon in the late 1970s dealt largely with tropical diseases and maladies more commonplace in Third World countries, but that training was abbreviated by a revolt that forced him to flee south to continue his education.

“We were in the throes of a very bloody civil war at that time,” he said.

So in 1981 he moved to Cape Town, South Africa, where he ultimately would glean his first experience with the practice that has since held him captive. One of his first rotations there was with a plastic surgeon.

“At the time, I had no exposure to plastic surgery,” he said. “That really changed my focus.”

In his next year of general service as a surgeon, he found himself drawn to hand and facial surgeries, and decided to pursue further practice with plastic surgery.

Jones first came to the United States in 1988, attending a school in Norfolk, VA, then Emory University in Atlanta and, finally, further studying hand surgery at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. Afterwards, he returned to South Africa and a practice that had been kept open for him while he finished studies overseas.

But he was offered a job at Emory, the place where he was first exposed to breast reconstructive surgery, 1n 1992, and permanently moved to the states.

It was while he was teaching at Emory that Jones met Dr. Eric Elwood, who eventually would lure Jones to Peoria. Elwood was completing his doctoral studies at Emory. Elwood works at Peoria Surgical Group and is the division chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery at University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria.

Elwood convinced Jones to teach as a visiting professor at the college in 2005, and he joined the surgical group and faculty at the College of Medicine in May 2007. Jones was convinced to relocate here by the technology available at the college and the regional impact of local hospital service.

“The people are very, very serious about it here,” Jones said.

Jones continues to specialize in breast reconstructive surgery here, specifically procedures that use tissue and muscle from other areas of the patient’s body to naturally recreate what was lost to cancer.

And it’s a job made easier by the size of and medical specialties available in the Peoria area, Jones’ new home town. While the larger metropolitan areas where he’s practiced generally provided the same medical resources, it was more difficult to take a multi-disciplinary approach to health care.

Now, Jones works with patients and other teams of doctors and surgeons throughout the treatment of breast cancer and often performs reconstruction immediately following the mastectomy, reducing hospitalization time and costs.

“It just seems to be a far more seamless situation,” Jones said of the coordinated efforts in Peoria. “It’s a very gratifying discipline.”