Dr Alessandra Canal grew up in Auckland and graduated from the University of Auckland Medical School. She trained in New Zealand in plastic surgery, achieving a Fellowship from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1999. Subsequently her postgraduate training overseas included a year at Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge UK in general plastic and breast reconstructive surgery, with a Breast and Hand fellowship in Paris, Belgium and America in MD Anderson Houston and Nashville, Tennessee. In that time she gained the Diplome Chirugie De La Main (Dip Hand Surgery) from the Pierre and Marie Currie University in Paris. During this period she gained vast experience including learning the technique of DIEP FLAP, and was the first to use this procedure in New Zealand.

 

Dr Canal returned to New Zealand in 2001 and worked at Middlemore Hospital, South Auckland as a Consultant Plastic Surgeon involved in the multidisciplinary breast team, hand team and general plastic surgery including skin cancer. In 2003 she took up a position at Addenbrookes University Teaching Hospital, Cambridge where she gained special registration with the General Medical Council, practicing a wide range of plastic surgery, with specialist interest in breast surgery, skin cancer, hand surgery, microsurgery and paediatric hand surgery. She also taught the academic programme, was the lead for audit and governance, part of the multi disciplinary regional skin cancer group, and practiced with the head, neck and neurosurgery teams. In addition to her extensive public work she had a private practice in Cambridge for reconstructive and aesthetic surgery at the Cambridge Lea Hospital and The Nuffield. In 2008 she returned to New Zealand for family reasons.

 

As a highly experienced plastic and reconstructive surgeon she is also committed to the ongoing development of her field of expertise and is actively involved in research, audit and assessment of outcomes, teaching, presenting and publishing papers in international and local journals and conferences.

 

Currently Dr Canal works at the Plastic Surgery Unit at Middlemore Hospital, and in private practice, offering a clinic at both, One Health, Remuera, Auckland and Ormiston Surgical Centre, Flatbush, South Auckland.