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Pen mightier than scalpel for life storysThe Daily Mercury, Mackay, Friday, December 27, 2002 FORMER Mackay plastic surgeon Costel Vasilescu has exchanged scalpel for pen and paper to release an autobiography. The Romanian-born doctor, who practised in Mackay and North Queensland for about 14 years, has overcome many trials and tribulations during a career that spanned various continents and decades. Dr Vasilescu has encompassed his life story into More Than Skin Deep, an autobiography released in Townsville this month. Born in Romania on February 7, 1933, Dr Vasilescu experienced first-hand Hitler's war and Stalinist oppression. After seeing the corruption and cruel absurdity of life surrounded by KGB-like informers, he escaped the Communist regime and took his surgical skills overseas. A long and winding road as a foreign surgeon in Britain included a compulsory stint at university to qualify to practise in England. Eventually, Dr Vasilescu came to Australia and settled in Townsville, with wife Nita. Dr Vasilescu was appointed the first plastic surgeon at Townville General Hospital in 1979 and set up a private practice, travelling to his consultation rooms at Mackay Mater Hospital every fortnight until 1990. He would perform small procedures, although, for more intricate procedures, Mackay residents travelled to Townsville. The onset of Parkinson's disease contributed to Dr Vasilescu's retirement in 1993. That's when he began writing, with encouragement from his friend and well-known Australian plastic surgeon, the late Sir Benjamin Rank. Dr Vasilescu remains living in Townsville with wife Nita. More Than Skin Deep is expected to hit Mackay bookshelves soon. Mrs Vasilescu said publishers were in discussion with Mackay's Angus & Robertson bookstore. At present readers can purchase the book through Townsville's Mary Who? Bookshop or Dymocks. Book gets under skinThe Cairns Post Weekend Extra, Saturday, December 21, 2002 Romanian plastic surgeon Dr Costel Vasilescu fled political unrest in Europe and became one of the Far North's eminent plastic surgeons. JAN LAHNEY looks at his life as told in his autobiography, More Than Skin Deep. A quietly spoken Romanian doctor boarded a flight from Bucharest that was to take him from the political oppression of Eastern Europe to the West and a new life. His mother's voice was still in his ears. "No matter what will happen here, do not come back or I will disown you". The year was 1968. Costel Vasilescu, who says he was introduced to plastic surgery more by accident than design, had earned the right to work with the noted surgeon, A.B. Wallace, at the Bangour unit near Edinburgh, in Scotland. While working in reconstructive surgery in the Miners' Health Centre in Ticu, Romania, Dr Vasilescu had written a medical paper on "the flap reconstruction of the forearm following severe injury", based on his experience treating injured miners with crushed hands. His work had been noticed at the top-grade Scottish facility and he had been offered a six-month appointment. An international career of plastic and reconstructive surgery was launched. Romania's loss eventually became Australia's gain. After surviving European political regimes, the demands of the British and Australian medical accreditation boards, Costel Vasilescu became the first consultant plastic surgeon at the Townsville General Hospital in 1979. Later he extended his practice to include Mackay and Cairns. Last week, Dr Vasilescu launched his autobiography, More Than Skin Deep, in Townsville. It is an insight into Romanian political and social history. He details, with humour, the personal and professional discrimination he encountered and his achievements despite the odds. Born in Romania in 1933, he saw his idyllic homeland turned sour by Hitler then by Hungarian ethnic cleansing and, finally, gutted by the oppression of Stalin. From his father, a professor in medicine, he learned the calm courage he would need to survive the political violence, threats and discrimination that was to be a part of his life. As a child, he watched his father calmly turn away a drunken Russian soldier who, armed with a sub-machine gun, tried to invade their home in the middle of the night. As a young adult, he learned to trust no one. The over-friendly nice guy, the former political prisoner, the friend with too many questions, all could have had a hidden agenda of betrayal. Both sexes, he discovered, were equally clever at deception and addicted to the Communist Party line. He tells of fighting to hold his place in medical school during the Communist regime, when his bourgeois background automatically branded him an enemy of the state. After his life experiences, he says the best advice he would give his grandson Alexander would be to be honest. And to work hard and don't cut corners. He admits his drive for perfection can be demanding but he prefers to work that way. Sid Roveda, with whom he established the first cleft lip and palate clinic outside a capital city, and his anaesthetist, Maurice Unwin, both described him as a good surgeon, who was meticulous in his work. Retired Cairns surgeon Ken Pettit said as well as being a happy, approachable man, Dr Vasilescu was a competent plastic surgeon with the necessary perfection the job demanded. North Queensland has the world's highest incidence of skin cancer and many patients who had left the condition untreated for too long, particularly those from cattle stations, benefited from Dr Vasilescu's skill, Dr Unwin says. A Cairns patient who needed reconstructive surgery says the doctor's attitude and surgical expertise helped her restore her medical and psychological wellbeing. "Other people, including doctors, did not see it as a major problem," Rosemary Iloste Says. The Townsville doctor reassured her, explaining that without surgery, her condition would result in physical deterioration. On hearing she had no support network in Townsville, he scheduled the procedure for Cairns - a first for the city. Dr Vasilescu says the things that make him laugh in life are people who think they are greater than they are - and politicians. When he sits back and reflects on the world, he says he feels it is more important to be politically honest than politically correct. Mentor and supporter, the late Sir Benjamin Rank, says in the book's foreword, Dr Vasilescu's "learned discourse" shows the importance of full acceptance of approved migrants. Dr Unwin says Dr Vasilescu and his wife, Nita (nee Bryce from Gordonvale), with their appreciation of literature, music and philosophy have, as a couple, contributed positively to the cultural aspect of life in the North. Former James Cook University lecturer, Nita Vasilescu, is in awe of her husband's determination to get his life story written and published. She says his resilience against Parkinson's disease, which keeps him housebound, is typical of how he has approached the major hurdles in life - "never give up, never give in." More Than Skin Deep is available from most book stores or online at www.tevia.com.au It's a risky businessTownsville Bulletin, Saturday, December 7, 2002 Retired plastic surgeon Costel Vasilescu has finally published his autobiography which recounts his escape from Communist Romania and his tribulations as a foreign surgeon in Britain and Australia. IAN FRAZER reports. Costel Vasilescu finished his autobiography, More than Skin Deep, in 1997, then baulked at publishing it. Friends who read the manuscript, about his escape from Communist Romania and tribulations as a foreign surgeon in Britain and Australia warned it could make him enemies. He took their advice seriously, having been menaced by the Romanian embassy after refusing to return from what was to have been a six month appointment to a plastic surgery unit near Edinburgh in 1968. He was forced to go back to medical school to qualify to practise in Britain and says he had to overcome opposition from a senior member of his profession before being permitted to work in Australia. Dr Vasilescu was the first consultant plastic surgeon to be appointed to Townsville General Hospital, in 1979. He migrated to Australia in 1978 with his wife Nita (nee Bryce), a Gordonvale-born mathematics lecturer whom he met on a spur-of-the moment bus tour of Sienna, Italy, in 1971. Nita precipitated their move to Townsville when appointed a commerce lecturer at JCU. After overcoming bureaucracy, some xenophobia and what he describes as a minority "anti-Costel group", Dr Vasilescu established a plastic and reconstructive surgery service for the North. He set up Townsville's first cleft lip and palate clinic and built a private practice with clinics in Townsville, Cairns and in Mackay. But he was forced to retire in 1993, aged 61, with the onset of Parkinson's Disease, the disabling, degenerative, neurological condition which also afflicts Muhammad Ali, actor Michael J Fox and the Pope. He began writing that year, with encouragement from the father of Australian plastic surgery Sir Benjamin Rank, who befriended him in Britain in the 1970s. Sir Benjamin died last January aged 91, but has left a testimonial to his friend in the foreword to More Than Skin Deep, in which he encourages readers to welcome migrants, "to offset … separate cultural enclaves aggregating in regions". Dr Vasilescu said in an interview this week he had decided to publish his story, despite the risk of causing offence, to record his dismal experience of communism and to encourage readers battling against the odds. Writing had been some consolation for having to give up surgery, which he said he missed painfully. "That was my escape, to sit here, in my misery and write," he said with a much-travelled grin. I can't go places, I'm more or less housebound." He confessed he had written for a popular audience once before, while a medical student when he and two friends became self-appointed reporters for a college newspaper called Lupta Ardealului (Transylvania's Struggle). "Everybody had to do something to show his or her devotion," he said. "We became self-appointed enthusiasts - it was an ego-tickling exercise. The tickle was that we were apart from the crowd, like three Magi, visiting collective farms and interviewing people … to promote the working class." Dr Vasilescu's self-published book, edited by Associate Professor Don Gallagher, of JCU, is much more than an ideological tract. It delves beneath the stereotypes of plastic surgery (the author learnt his on crushed hands in a coalmine hospital) and examines human nature, friendship and fate. It combines social history, medicine, philosophy, some nostalgia, a little black humour and straight talking likely only to offend bigots and die-hard blackguards. More Than Skin Deep, by Costel Vasilescu, Tevia Pty Ltd, $22.95. Launching Mary Who?, next Friday. |
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