Background

Mr Ahmad has always wanted to be a doctor; he liked the idea of using his hands as well as his brain so he was sure he wanted to be a surgeon but it was not until he did a plastic surgery attachment he knew this was for him. Plastic surgeons have always had a reputation of being artists as well as being good surgically, craftsmen with their hands; it was a competitive speciality to break into, with a long apprenticeship but the challenge proved irresistible. In those days you could not even start plastic surgery training until you had done a couple of years of general surgery; plastic surgeons had to be able to operate all over the body and it was considered good to have experience in ENT (ear nose & throat), in orthopaedics, in urology, in vascular surgery – all of which Mr Ahmad did before starting again in plastic & reconstructive surgery. He was fabulously fortunate to be trained by exceptionally gifted surgeons, and he learnt lots from all of them. Early on he realised that he was truly ambidextrous – something very useful for a surgeon.

Education
Tariq Ahmad’s early education was at Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School in Lancashire England where he took his GCE O-Levels. At A-Level achieving four A grades he was successful in gaining admission to St Peter’s College, Oxford where he studied preclinical medicine. He went on to study clinical medicine at Trinity Hall Cambridge and at the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine from where he qualified as a doctor in 1982.

Surgical Training
Mr Ahmad’s subsequent training initially took in a lot of specialties, this was to prepare him for plastic surgery which is one of the most wide-ranging specialties and for which you have to be comfortable operating in most parts of the body. He therefore trained in general surgery, orthopaedic surgery, vascular and urological surgery as well as ENT. After completing this rotation of training in the surgical specialties and gaining his FRCS qualification (Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons) Mr Ahmad was able to start his training in plastic surgery in earnest, having been introduced to it in Norwich, he was appointed as a junior surgeon in Cambridge where he spent 7 years learning the craft of surgery but also taking some time out to undertake research into the molecular biology of melanoma skin cancer at the world famous MRC Cambridge laboratories.
Mr Ahmad has been so lucky to have a of his surgical teachers stands out for him, Bob Campbell, who himself trained with Ralph Millard (one of the fathers of cleft lip and palate surgery); in turn Millard trained with Harold Gillies who was one of the, if not the father of plastic surgery in the 20th century. Mr Ahmad often wonders why he was so lucky, to be afforded even a glimpse of the surgical insights from this line of gifted surgeons. It has stood him in good stead.

Art
Whilst at Oxford University, his Tutor took a liking to some drawings undertaken for a medical topic essay and advised him to pursue this interest; so whilst at Oxford, he attended classes at the Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Art in his spare time. He was able to mix with students taking art studies during this time and this stimulated a life-long interest not only in art, but the relationship of art to medicine, and to surgery in particular. He has taught several generations of medical students on art and surgery; he has led art and drawing classes for students and surgeons and has lectured on the topic in Cambridge and the National Gallery in London. He has also had exhibitions of his drawn operation notes at the Kettle’s Yard Museum in Cambridge and at the Rugby Art Gallery in Warwickshire.
He is on the Faculty of Sculpture for Surgeons and leads the Faculty of Drawing for Plastic Surgeons held every year in London.

Research, publications, innovations & contributions
Mr Ahmad helped develop CLEFTSiS, the Cleft Network in Scotland, before being invited back to Cambridge in 2003 to join and help progress their then nascent regional cleft network, Cleft.NET.East.
His special interest is in the utilisation buccinator (cheek) flaps in secondary surgery for speech in cleft patients to help improve speech but with much less in the way of the side effects of the more standard procedures used for this.
He developed and has published the ‘double loop mattress suture’ which can be particularly useful in cleft surgery as well as surgery in general. This knot allows tissues to be approximated with much reduced tension so greater strength of the closure if tissues are tight or tissues are delicate. The suture knot was investigated by one of his students at the Cambridge University Department of Engineering; it was found to be so strong that you could pull a car with it… hard to believe and so here is a link to the video of his co researcher (John Biddlestone) doing that very same thing.