Dean Spilias

Dean is passionate about...

Surgery

Often challenging, always rewarding. There are few other areas in medicine that show so clearly the links between symptoms and illnesses, their underlying pathological causes, and the dramatic effects of reversing those underlying causes to restore the body’s natural state. Sometimes the limits are reached—both human knowledge and human endurance have their limits—and sometimes it is wiser not to test those limits too far.

My special interests are upper gastrointestinal surgery, hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery, and the dietary/lifestyle and surgical management of obesity and diabetes. Metabolic management—primarily with simple dietary and lifestyle measures—can be remarkably effective in managing a number of conditions within this field of practice.

Regenerative ecology

Call it sustainability, call it Permaculture, call it what you may—exponential growth can’t go on for ever in a closed, finite system. Whilst I still cling on to some hope of “opening the system”, I think we’ve missed the best chance of breaking out of the cycle of demand-driven resource scarcity followed by demand destruction and false recovery. Whether the resource in question is energy, or food, or living space, or optimal health; changing the supply-demand equation increasingly looks like a better option than more, more, more.

Systems-level design

Eagle-eye view, or head in the clouds? The devil’s in the details, but stepping back can keep you out of the fire.

Elegant tools

It is surprisingly difficult to find a tool so good that you barely notice it is there when you're using it. Whether physical, technological or cognitive, good tools make good work a pleasure.