Each year, he looks after 450 acute burns patients in his job as a plastic surgeon and medical director at the Royal Adelaide Hospital’s Adult Burns Unit.

He led the first response team dispatched to Darwin which helped save the lives of the 67 people who were burnt in the 2002 Bali bombings.

The humble doctor is proud of his long list of achievements but is most proud of his work in developing novel ways to treat patients with life-threatening burns.

“To work in South Australia and be recognised in this way is humbling and makes me extremely proud,” Dr Greenwood, 52, said receiving the honour last night at a dinner at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre hosted by the National Australia Day Council.

Since 2003, Dr Greenwood has been developing innovative ways to treat burns including a skin substitute product based on a biodegradable polyurethane platform that replaces skin grafts.

“That was the inspiration that made me go on for the last 11 years, to develop these skins that I’ve been creating and we now use on burns patients at the Royal Adelaide Hospital,” he said.

“The first product is a material directly applied to the wound and your body grows into it and it becomes part of your new skin … it has already been used in 32 surgical patients and the results have been really good.

“The second product is we can now grow 2.5sq m of skin in 28 days which is enough to cover a human.”

This year, Dr Greenwood’s research on the skin growth product won a $US29 million contract from America’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to develop it in human trials in America before it is available worldwide.

“People in China, India and Africa will be able to use this,” he said. “I’m hoping this becomes part of the evolution of burn care and it makes it more accessible, more cost effective and more available for everybody in the world – not just those in rich nations.”

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