In 1945, Loris started medical school at Melbourne University and she was in the middle of a zoology lecture when the war ended. 

During her time at Melbourne University, Loris participated in many extracurricular activities like the ‘Dry Bones’ stage performance and becoming a bell ringer at S Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne, but her work as a nurse at Sunbury Mental Hospital had the biggest impact on her. She worked in the ‘wet and dirty’ ward, where hundreds of disorientated and incontinent patients lived. Loris saw the effects of electroconvulsive therapy and insulin shock treatment on these vulnerable patients.

After her pre-clinical years, Loris was allocated to the Royal Melbourne Hospital as part of a group of twelve (otherwise) male students and became very proficient in intravenous drips, transfusions, and lumbar punctures. But more than any technical skills she also learnt what she considered the “most important lesson in clinical medicine, in fact, probably in life itself — the value of talking to people and even more importantly, of listening to them”.

Loris had to delay her final exam, as she developed chicken pox after she volunteered to see a newborn with the infection. This left her without a position after medical school. Disappointed, but no stranger to adversity, Loris took a position in the pathology department at the Queen Victoria Hospital. Seeing patients with poliomyelitis, as well as rhesus incompatibility, and congenital cerebral malfunctions became her daily work. It was then that she realised fresh blood had the most therapeutic effect in transfusions, something she became passionate about. 

Loris’s next job was an internship at the Frankston orthopaedic section of the Royal Children’s Hospital, an open-air hospital patterned on the design of Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt's Orthopaedic Hospital in Oswestry, England. Children with chronic bone and joint diseases spent many years in the fresh air in the hope of controlling their illnesses. It was at Frankston orthopaedics that she met one of her mentors, orthopaedic surgeon John B Colquhoun.

There were two schools of thought in the treatment of spine infections at that time. One group believed in complete immobilisation in a plaster cast until healing occurred, which could be years away, whereas the other believed in controlled movement in a Bradford frame (a water-piping rectangle) and exposure to sunlight. Loris strongly believed in the latter, not only for its medical outcome, but also because it resulted in a happier and more cooperative child. 

Surgery, particularly spine surgery on those fragile patients with deformities, was a huge undertaking, and Loris set up a system of blood grouping of hospital staff to avoid the long distance to the blood bank in an emergency. Her ongoing passion for the effect of fresh blood transfusions, which resulted in dramatic transformations in tuberculosis patients, led to her next position at the Austin Hospital. 

Loris arrived in the UK in the winter of 1961. With the assistance and mentorship of Sir James Patterson Ross, who was the surgeon to the Queen at the time, she was able to find suitable accommodation at William Goodenough House, as well as an orthopaedic position in an ‘open-air’ hospital in the countryside of Robin Hood’s Sherwoood Forest. She enjoyed the beautiful forest of birch, oak, and elm, but missed the scent of eucalyptus and Australia. Opposite to the hospital was Newstead Abby, which was the home of Lord Byron, whom she learnt had been treated for congenital clubfeet.

Harlow Wood Orthopaedic Hospital covered a large area including the Derbyshire coal mines, and Loris treated many patients with knee and back injuries resulting from their crouched posture in the narrow mining tunnels.

Back in London, she achieved her goal of primary fellowship at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. It filled her with pride to be part of this ancient history.

She then worked in general surgery at Copthorne Hospital in Shrewsbury in the hills of North Wales. Due to its remote location, a group of Welshmen known as the ‘Bed Bureau’ provided the only patient transport and ambulance service to the area. 

After three years and her second part of fellowship, Loris returned home on a cargo ship. It was a time of political unrest in Africa and the ship was anchored in Eritrea. As the doctor on board, Loris looked after the crew and when finally allowed ashore in Aden, she saw many children who were blinded by the eye disease trachoma. 

Loris arrived back in Melbourne in early 1964.

Through her previous mentors, Professor Wright and Dr Gwynn Villiers, Loris was asked to be part of establishing the Trade Union Clinic in Footscray to treat, and more importantly, prevent employment-based injuries. Even though she was not a political person and the Australian Medical Association had blacklisted the site due to its potential connection to communism, she took on the challenge and ended up staying there for nine years.

Meat workers from Geelong presented with tendon injuries, infections, and amputations, as well as Brucellosis, Q fever, and the skin disease Orf. A mesh glove was introduced to help reduce hand injuries and the word spread quickly. The number of patients began to grow each week, eventually requiring a special session to be run every day known as ”the back clinic”.  A compulsory lifting class was added to the service and industrial safety became a serious business. It also changed Loris’s life, as she met her later husband at the Safety Convention, where he worked as one of the safety officers. After a major internal strike, the clinic was discontinued, but Loris felt they had achieved a lot in those years and improved safety in the workplace for good.

Once again, she had to move on and decided to start a private practice. Dandenong was a region that was developing at the time and after facing initial pushback due to her previous AMA blacklisted job, she finally became a member of the consultant staff at Dandenong Hospital. 

The two-lane Princess Highway in Gippsland in the 1970s passed straight through the towns and speed was uncontrolled. Bikies in their all-black gear took great risks going at high speed in large groups and the accidents and injuries were horrific. The increased flow of patients not only led to a busy orthopaedic unit in Dandenong, but also the decision for Loris and her husband Dave to establish a home in Berwick, far enough away from the work hub, but still close enough for ready access.

They were formed into teams of three at Dandenong Hospital, a general surgeon, an anaesthetist, and an orthopaedic surgeon. The great teamwork led to miracles, particularly when they had to improvise under difficult circumstances.

Lap-type seat belts were still in use, which led to horrific spinal injuries. In her book, Loris remembered a young woman who sustained an injury to her upper lumbar spine after a head-on collision, which left her spine with an angulation of 45 degrees. As the abdominal injuries could not be treated, they had to reduce the spine first, which was later stabilised with tendon grafts from the patient’s toes. 

Another wonderful contribution to the team was the nursing staff who assisted not only clinically, but also looking after the mental state of these traumatised patients. Farm injuries and congenital conditions, such as clubfeet and congenital hip dislocation, were also regular pathologies during her time in Dandenong.

Better road and traffic control and the use of helicopters allowed the centralisation of trauma management to larger city hospitals. Loris left Dandenong Hospital in 1987 and decided to slow down to a less demanding pace. Loris and her husband bought “Inveresk, the old house on the hill’” in Berwick, which was once known as Bordertown due to its border with NSW. She retired in 1997, a step she never regretted. 

Loris passed away on 29 December 2023.

Loris Freda Figgins was a contemporary witness of orthopaedic surgery throughout the last century.

We can all learn from her positive attitude, perseverance, resilience, curiosity, humanity, and humility. A true trailblazer in the orthopaedic world!