Dr Sharad Paul

Director, Skin Surgery Clinic

Auckland’s Dr Sharad Paul has been described as a Renaissance man.

In the year 2012 alone, as well as juggling three medical roles, he was also a finalist for the New Zealander of the Year award, his second novel was published and he was awarded the Chair’s Award by the New Zealand Medical Association, awarded to an individual or organisation which has made a substantial contribution to the health of New Zealanders.

Dr Paul’s major clinical interests are sun damage, skin repair, wound healing, management of skin cancers and facial reconstruction following removal of skin cancers.

As well as being director of the Skin Surgery Clinic, he holds the positions of honorary Senior Lecturer in Surgery at the University of Auckland and Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland School of Medicine.

In 2007 he invented the first new skin graft technique that reduces costs, pain and healing time for patients, and he has presented this new technique at international conferences.

Outside of medicine Dr Paul runs an award winning café and bookstore called the Baci Lounge, in Newmarket. Proceeds are used to fund literacy programmes in low decile Auckland schools, with the aim of helping children to “dream with their eyes wide open.” He has also served on the National Commission of UNESCO.

Dr Paul has been described in the media as “one of the most inspiring, intelligent and compassionate men you are likely to meet”. TIME magazine, in 2008, called him “Open Heart Surgeon”.

Dr Paul did his medical training in Madras, India, and came to New Zealand in 1991. He completed three years of general surgery and two years of plastic surgical training, including work at Hutt and Middlemore Hospitals as well as overseas. Later he also became a Fellow of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners in 1999, and gained a Master of Philosophy in Medical Law and Ethics from the University of Glasgow in 2002. He is also a Fellow of the Skin Cancer College of Australasia.

Dr Paul operates a busy medical practice ‘Baci Cosmetologie’ a skin care company which has a special range of products for Asian and brown skin and is also a published author of both fiction and non-fiction:

Literary fiction:

• Cool Cut (Picador 2007)
• To Kill a Snow Dragonfly (4th Estate, Harper Collins 2012)
• Kite Flyers (4th Estate, 2013)

Narrative non fiction:

• Skin, a Biography (4th Estate, 2013)