Meet the first Ghanaian Plastic Surgeon | Kafui Dey interviews Mr. Anthony George Laing

"You have to be humble enough to know what you know — and know what you don't know. If you can't do that, you take on something you can't handle and before you realize it, the harm has been done." — Mr. Anthony George Laing

The Pioneer Who Built a Specialty from Nothing

Mr. Anthony George Laing is one of Ghana's foremost pioneers of plastic and reconstructive surgery. Qualifying as a doctor in 1967 at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, he went on to specialise in plastic surgery in Sheffield, UK, before returning to Ghana in 1993 as the country's first dedicated plastic surgeon. Together with a visiting group of international surgeons led by Professor Mustardi, he helped establish the National Reconstructive Plastic Surgery and Burns Centre at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, which was commissioned on 5th May 1997. Today, Ghana has over 20 plastic surgeons — many of whom trained directly under Mr. Laing.

What Plastic Surgery Actually Is

"The word plastic itself comes from a Greek word which means shape or form — you're dealing with an object which has dimensions." — Mr. Anthony George Laing

Contrary to popular perception, plastic surgery is far more than cosmetic enhancement. Mr. Laing explains that the specialty covers two broad categories: congenital conditions — those you are born with — and acquired defects resulting from accidents, burns, infections, or cancer.

In Ghana, the most common congenital cases include cleft lip and palate, duplication of the thumb, and syndactyly — where fingers or toes are fused together. On the cosmetic side, breast reduction and liposuction are among the most frequently requested procedures, though Mr. Laing is quick to stress that patient selection is critical. Not everyone is a suitable candidate, and the wrong motive — such as a wife seeking surgery to compete with a husband's secretary — will almost always lead to dissatisfaction regardless of the outcome.

Inside the Operating Theatre

Mr. Laing offers a rare and candid window into what happens inside an operating room. Surgeries can last anywhere from three to eight hours, sometimes more. His longest single operation was reattaching the nearly-severed hand of Karim Zito, a football coach who was assaulted, a procedure that took seven to eight hours and required meticulous repair of tendons, blood vessels, nerves, and bones.

Music sometimes plays in theatre — Mr. Laing prefers something calm and melodic, not too upbeat, to keep the atmosphere focused. He notes that it is usually the assistants, not the lead surgeon, who risk nodding off during long procedures. When things get critical — a patient bleeding heavily from a neck wound, for example — the music stops, conversation ceases, and the room falls completely silent so the surgeon can think clearly.

He recalls his most terrifying moment as operating on a patient stabbed deep in the neck, where gaining access risked damaging critical structures, and unlike other parts of the body, a tourniquet cannot be applied to the neck to control blood flow. The anesthetist can lower blood pressure, or the table can be tilted to reduce pressure at the site, but the work remains deeply challenging. "Blood from a large vessel around the neck can literally shoot up like a fountain," he says matter-of-factly.

Even the lights have gone off mid-surgery. Mr. Laing recounts instances where power cuts occurred during operations. The protocol is to place a damp saline-soaked gauze over the open wound to control any bleeding and simply wait for the lights to return. So far, no patient has been lost due to a power outage — but it remains an occupational reality.

Reconstructing Faces, Hands and Lives

Some of Mr. Laing's most complex work has involved facial reconstruction after severe road traffic accidents. He describes one case involving a 29-year-old woman whose face was dragged along rough tarmac during a vehicle somersault — leaving a gaping wound from her scalp to her jaw, with tissue so destroyed you could see directly into her mouth. Reconstruction required moving tissue from beneath her breast, including skin and muscle, and transferring it across the chest to rebuild the face in staged operations over time.

Burn reconstruction is another cornerstone of the work at the centre. Mr. Laing is passionate about the importance of proper burn unit design — patients with severe burns have severely compromised immune systems and must be protected from infection through proper isolation protocols, gowning, and controlled visitor access. He laments that Ghana's burn unit has historically not met these standards, with families, students, and visitors often walking in from outside in their outdoor clothes, potentially introducing infection to the most vulnerable patients.

For burns covering more than 30–40% of the body, outcomes become increasingly difficult. At 90% coverage, survival is nearly impossible. During the June 3rd disaster in Accra, Mr. Laing and his team had to perform triage — making the agonising decision of which patients were most likely to benefit from intervention and prioritising accordingly.

The Dangers of Skin Bleaching

In a particularly striking segment of the conversation, Mr. Laing speaks at length about the surgical dangers posed by skin bleaching. Many bleaching products contain steroids and heavy metals such as mercury and lead, which over time cause fragmentation of the collagen and elastic fibres that give skin its structure and support. Blood vessels lose their supporting tissue and break easily, causing patients to bruise at the slightest touch.

More dangerously, the external steroids suppress the adrenal gland, which normally produces the body's own stress hormones. In a medical emergency — such as a fall or an accident — the adrenal gland fails to respond. Blood pressure drops catastrophically and the patient can collapse and die, even while simply sitting in a chair waiting to be taken to theatre. Mr. Laing has experienced the grim duty of informing relatives that a patient they walked in with has died before the operation even began.

Bleached skin also heals poorly after surgery, making skin grafting technically more demanding and outcomes less predictable. And wounds that fail to heal cleanly over time can undergo cancerous cell changes — a long-term consequence many patients are entirely unaware of.

A Life Shaped by History

Born in 1940 in Dunkwa and raised in Kumasi after his father — a school headmaster and later supervisor of schools — was transferred to Ashanti, Mr. Laing grew up in a family defined by intellectual ambition. All five brothers excelled: one became a professor of botany and genetics at the University of Ghana, two others were medical doctors, and one rose to the rank of Group Captain in the Ghana Air Force.

Mr. Laing attended Achimota School, where he discovered his love of music under the tutelage of Ephraim Amu, composer of Ghana's national anthem. He was Entertainment Prefect in 1960 and still remembers the applause he received for performing in Shakespearean tights and singing a comic song called "I'm Very Fond of Water" — a performance that classmates, including a future university chancellor, still reference when they see him decades later.

He was present at the polo grounds on the night of Ghana's independence in 1957, as a 17-year-old student, when Kwame Nkrumah declared the country free. "You feel emancipated. You feel you've achieved something. You're part of something big," he recalls. He also witnessed visiting heads of state at Achimota School during independence week, including Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, whom he remembers as a surprisingly small man dressed in elaborate ceremonial clothing.

The Journey to Becoming a Surgeon

Mr. Laing initially considered dentistry — inspired by visits to an Indian dentist opposite the Accra post office and a school dentist during his time at Achimota. He eventually settled on medicine and was accepted at St. Andrews University in Scotland, partly through the advocacy of his elder brother, who was the university's triple jump champion and gold medalist in his class.

His sea voyage to the UK on the SS Calabar took 10 to 14 days and was marked by severe seasickness. On arrival, he trained at St. Andrews for his preclinical years, then moved to Dundee for clinical work. He passed his surgical fellowship exams at King's College Hospital London in 1977, and it was while assisting a private plastic surgeon at the Royal Masonic Hospital that he first witnessed nose jobs, breast reshaping and other reconstructive work — and decided this was the specialty he wanted to pursue. He trained in Sheffield, then worked across Bristol, Edinburgh, Cork, and several other UK centres before returning to Ghana.

Advice for the Next Generation

"The decision to become a specialist should be made by you — not imposed on you by a relation. You have to know your limits. There may be cases you find difficult, and you must be humble enough to discuss them with someone who knows." — Mr. Anthony George Laing

Mr. Laing's advice to young doctors is rooted in humility and self-awareness. Know what you know. Know what you don't know. Prepare thoroughly before every operation — even reviewing anatomy you think you remember. He compares starting a familiar procedure to riding a bicycle: once you begin, the muscle memory returns. But preparation is what gives you the confidence to begin.

He also warns against the growing culture of doctors moonlighting in unauthorised private practices for extra income, sometimes before they have even completed their training — a practice he considers not only illegal but dangerous to the public.

Almost 60 Years, Still Counting

At nearly 86, Mr. Anthony George Laing still teaches medical students at Korle Bu every week, taking groups of 13 to 15 final year students on Mondays and Tuesdays, walking them through the fundamentals and the philosophy of plastic surgery — encouraging them to think alongside the lecture rather than scroll through their phones.

He stopped smoking in 1992, has maintained steady hands throughout his career, and draws his energy from the young people around him. His proudest moments are not the most dramatic surgeries, but the quiet ones — a man approaching him in a supermarket to say his keloids have never returned. A young burns patient, now working in IT at Korle Bu, whose contractures he released years ago. Little moments that confirm, across decades, that the work was worth it.

"People come to me and say, 'You treated me 30 years ago.' I don't see any trace of the problem. To me, that's a good job. I feel good." — Mr. Anthony George Laing

— Mr. Anthony George Laing, pioneer of plastic and reconstructive surgery in Ghana, in conversation with Kafui Dey