Plastic Surgeon McKay McKinnon Has a Heart of Gold

In Vietnam, newspapers deem him “The Man with the Golden Hands.”

His surgical resume is voluminous and impressive, arguably more so than any other doctor in his field. And while TLC runs sensationally titled programming documenting his work (“My Giant Face Tumor”) he remains an enigmatic hometown hero.

While Dr. McKay McKinnon, MD, runs a bustling and highly successful full-service plastic surgery practice in Chicago, it’s his international philanthropic work that really sets him apart from his peers. For the past three decades, Dr. McKinnon has traveled extensively, performing life-saving surgeries on some of the world’s most exceptional medical conditions, for just the cost of travel. McKinnon’s work has taken him from annual missions in Choluteca, Honduras, where he has routinely performed cleft lip and palate surgery since 1985, to Romania, Vietnam and now India to remove invasive tumors from patients suffering from neurofibromatosis.

Neurofibromatosis, a genetic disorder of the nervous system, causes tumors to grow on the nerves. The condition is exceedingly common—affecting 1 in 2,500 people—and absolutely devastating. In extreme cases, such tumors can keep sufferers homebound and out of public sight. Given the low success rate and high risk of complications, surgery for severe neurofibromatosis is eschewed by even the most accomplished surgeons.

With decades of cosmetic and reconstructive surgery under his belt, and an educational resume that includes Harvard, University of North Carolina and University of Miami, Dr. McKinnon is one of the few surgeons in the world willing to take on these difficult cases. Dr. McKinnon is soft-spoken, modest and reserved, a pragmatist to his core. Raised in North Carolina, he’s retained the Southern gentility, allowing his exceptional work to shine. The Kenilworth father of four has made surgery a family affair; his wife, Astrid, a practicing nurse, works with him in their Lake Shore Drive office, and the family often travels together for Dr. McKinnon’s international operations.

In late 2011, the McKinnons traveled to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to assess a then-31-year-old Vietnamese man bedridden by a 200-pound tumor engulfing his right leg. The monstrous tumor defined Nguyen Duy Hai’s life, restricting him to his home in the Vietnamese countryside for six years. It required half a dozen men to lift him, as he’d lost his capacity to walk or move his lower body. At age 17, doctors amputated his right leg, hoping to hinder the tumor’s rapid growth, but it returned with a vengeance, nearly quadrupling its previous size. After meeting Nguyen via Skype through the Tree of Life Foundation, McKinnon agreed to accept his case and traveled to Vietnam to take him on as a patient.

Nguyen’s journey, chronicled in a TLC special, “The Man with the 200-lb Tumor,” took him from his small hometown of Da Lat to the bustling city, but, upon McKinnon’s arrival and a subsequent evaluation, local doctors rejected Nguyen’s surgery. The operation had a 50 percent success rate, but without surgery, Nguyen was given just a year to live.

McKinnon, traditionally level-headed and exceedingly polite, becomes fiery when faced with an obstacle to a worthy case, and he committed himself to convincing the hospital board to host Nguyen’s procedure. With his pleas in vain, McKinnon was forced to tell Nguyen he cannot operate and return to Chicago.

Amanda Schumacher, founder of the Tree of Life Foundation, persisted, and the nearby Franco-Vietnamese Hospital agreed to host McKinnon and a team of associates for Nguyen’s surgery. McKinnon spent 12 hours in surgery, and successfully removed what was considered the world’s largest tumor.

“We talk about how brave you were, two months ago, to accept what seemed to be a different fate,” McKinnon told Nguyen as he recovered. “And you could accept that, it seemed, but I could not, so I had to come back.” His resilience proved well founded. Nguyen has been tumor-free since the surgery and is relearning to walk.

For Dr. McKinnon, the language barrier, both with surgeons and patients, can prove difficult. “I can conduct an operation in Spanish, a surgery in French,” he says. “(With patients,) I just have to depend upon my colleagues to interpret things accurately. Many of these patients are without hope for other alternatives to help them, so they are quite willing to take on risks.”

The McKinnon family is currently traveling to Kochi, India, where Dr. McKinnon will operate on three patients: brother and sister Sil and Jayanthi and friend Om, who all suffer from large, debilitating facial tumors. The mission, a collaboration between Project Om Shanti (Om Shanti meaning the “prayer of peace” in Hindu) and Rotary International, is the third surgery for Sil and Jayanthi, whose tumors regrew and proliferated when the pair hit puberty. Confined to their homes and without sight in one eye, the surgery could be life changing for the patients.

MAD-McKinnon-Sil-and-Jay

“I enjoy the challenge,” Dr. McKinnon says. “It’s ultimately about helping a patient who otherwise wouldn’t get any help at all. I feel lucky we haven’t had any serious complications, and gratitude for the things that have gone well.”

Nguyen is exceptionally gracious and grateful for his opportunity. In a poignant moment from the TLC documentary about his surgery, Nguyen tearfully addresses Dr. McKinnon, “I am a person drowning at sea. Doctor, you are my lifesaver that I can hold onto.”

“He called you his second father,” says Astrid, addressing her husband. “You gave him another chance at life.”

And while his groundbreaking work has brought Dr. McKinnon to exotic locales, these mission trips are far from a vacation.

“I’m not here to be a tourist,” he says. In addition to his surgical work, McKinnon will lead clinics and conferences while in India to educate and equip local surgeons with the tools to perform similar high-risk surgeries.

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