Consultant Plastic Surgeon Miss Suzie Murphy on her route into plastic surgery, the work that shaped her, and why she believes the decision always belongs to the patient.
iQonic Aesthetics is built around one idea: the patient is the decision-maker. When a new surgeon joins the team, it's worth hearing how she thinks about the people who sit across from her. In this video,Miss Suzie Murphy, Consultant Plastic Surgeon at iQonic, introduces herself in her own words.
"I'm Suzie Murphy, consultant plastic surgeon working here at iQonic Aesthetics, and I really look forward to seeing you here," she says.
Suzie came to medicine as a graduate rather than straight from school, and she remembers the moment her direction became clear. "I was first drawn to medicine as a student when I saw a heart-lung transplant and was just blown away by the technique of the surgery," she says. "That was the moment I decided I was going to become a surgeon."
The route there was deliberate. "I actually did medicine as a graduate, so I took a science degree first in Birmingham before doing a graduate-entry medicine course a little bit later in life. That gave me the focus I needed to be able to achieve in a competitive specialty like plastic surgery."
Her early training shaped the kind of surgeon she wanted to be. "My first ever job in plastic surgery was in Birmingham during the war in Afghanistan, where we were treating a lot of the soldiers brought back from the conflict with really extensive injuries," she says. "That firmed up my choice of wanting to work in plastics, to reconstruct and rebuild people's lives."
Asked what confirmed she was on the right path, Suzie returns to one reconstruction. "One of the most memorable cases I have during my training as a plastic surgeon was when we did a big head and neck reconstruction, where we were able to restore form and function to the patient by reconstructing with a piece of tissue from elsewhere on the body, which meant that they were then able to eat and drink and maintain activities of normal daily living."
Restoring what a patient had lost and seeing them return to the ordinary activities of daily life was what made the work feel worthwhile to her.
Many patients arrive nervous, and Suzie treats that as a normal part of the conversation. "When a patient comes to see me at the clinic, I really want them to be able to relax and take their time, to be able to ask all of the questions and address the concerns that they have," she says.
"It's natural for people to feel nervous about undertaking surgery. It's a big step, and I want to be able to alleviate their concerns and put them at ease by taking time, and to give them the time to consider their choices."
That unhurried approach is the same one iQonic builds into every consultation, from the Silhouette tool you complete before you arrive to the Crisalix 3D preview that lets you see a potential outcome and take it home before you decide anything.
When Suzie describes a good outcome, she points to proportion rather than a single ideal. "A natural, beautiful result is one that takes into consideration the patient's specific anatomical features, harmonises it to their own body and frame, and allows them to have the confidence they want," she says. The aim is a result that reads as the patient's own.
For all her training and experience, Suzie is clear about where the authority sits. "The one thing I wish patients understood before they came into the clinic is that the choice is entirely theirs," she says. "The decision for surgery has to be right with you, at a specific time in your life."
It's a view that fits a clinic designed around patient choice, where you hold the information and the time you need to decide on your own terms. Miss Suzie Murphy has joined the team at iQonic Aesthetics, and, in her words, she looks forward to seeing you there.
