Nicholas Bennett qualified in 1988 from University College London, having decided 14 years previously, when aged 11, that he wanted to become a Plastic Surgeon. After his pre-registration year working at hospitals in London and North Yorkshire, he went on to complete his Officer training at Sandhurst and then a two year attachment as a General Practitioner at a Group Practice near Salisbury.

His introduction to plastic surgery was at The Queen Elizabeth Military Hospital in 1994, where heserved as a Senior House Officer for six months. The unit treated both military and civilian patients, although the majority were soldiers evacuated from Bosnia and the Falklands with lower limb trauma and burns. The easy accessibility by helicopter meant that the hospital also received many acute burns from London and the South east, and he gained valuable experience in burn resuscitation.

Following further periods of surgical training including General Surgery, Urology, Orthopaedics and Neurosurgery it became clear to him that he still wanted to pursue a career in Plastic Surgery and in 1996 he commenced training at Odstock Hospital, Salisbury. He became involved in a research project investigating the surgical management of chemical burns. He was awarded the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in London in 1996.

He became a Specialist Registrar in Plastic Surgery in 1997, remaining at Salisbury for a further two and a half years. He gained further experience in burns, breast reconstruction, functional electrical stimulation for paraplegia, congenital and adult hand surgery including rheumatoid surgery, head and neck surgery, cleft lip and palate surgery, microvascular surgery and exposure to trauma, particularly hand injuries. During this time he made a charitable visit to Kathmandu, Nepal to treat child burn victims and teach burn surgery techniques to the Nepalese surgeons at the Children’s Hospital.

He continued his plastic surgery training at the internationally renowned Canniesburn hospital,Glasgow in March 2000, where he received increasing exposure to a wide variety of sub-specialties. In particular, the management of benign and malignant skin lesions, head and neck surgery, burns, endoscopic assisted surgery, breast reconstruction, cleft surgery, vascular anomalies, and the use of local, distant and free flaps within all these sub-specialties, together with a wide exposure to general trauma.Having attained the final Plastic Surgery Fellowship examination, FRCS (Plast), in September 2002, and passed the European Board Fellowship Examination in Plastic Surgery (EBOPRAS)in Bern, Switzerland in November 2002, his Certificate of Completion of Surgical Training (CCST) was awarded in February 2003. He is a member of The British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons.

He returned to the south of England with his wife and four children, in order to take up his appointment as a Consultant Plastic Surgeon in the Defence Medical Services at The Royal Hospital Haslar and Portsmouth Healthcare NHS trust in May 2003.