Chapple's Principles of Wound Care and Healing

This book is a tribute to Dr Joan Chapple CNZM FRACS, who qualified as New Zealand's first formally trained female plastic surgeon in the late 1950s and practised as a plastic and hand surgeon in Auckland, New Zealand for over 38 years. She was selected for surgical training by the late Sir William Manchester, who started the Middlemore Plastic Surgery Unit in December 1950.

Joan was an original thinker and a pioneer in the fields of wound care and healing in her own right. She self-published “The Management of Soft Tissue Injuries: Philosophy, Principles and Practice” in 1994, followed by her definitive “Wound Care and Healing: The Physiological Challenge” in 2003.

Dr Chapple developed principles of a practical physiological approach to acute wounds that not only benefited their recovery and healing, but also demonstrably reduced the post-operative pain in her patients. She practised and taught these principles at her Soft Tissue Trauma Clinics, based at the Emergency Department of the then Auckland Public Hospital. She also lectured widely to nurses, medical students, general practitioners and surgeons.

Joan Chapple’s primary hypotheses were: 1. Injury initiates a series of coordinated living responses. 2. Living cells need to be nurtured in a moist and non-toxic environment. 3. The speed and quality of recovery and repair after injury depends on the circulation. 4. The body recovers and heals with or without treatment, but never without circulation.

This republication of “Chapple's Wound Care and Healing” comes with a modern orientation and includes expert commentaries, many of which confirm that Dr Chapple’s thinking, knowledge and surgical principles were ahead of their time. In addition, it contains a new chapter explaining her extraordinary life and career for a world readership.

Joan Chapple remains an important virtual mentor to future generations of surgeons, nurses, emergency specialists and general practitioners.