Personal Profile
Mr Marais attended medical school in South Africa and registered with the GMC to train as a junior doctor in UK. He worked as a house-officer in London at the Royal National Throat, Nose & Ear Hospital with Mr Tony Bull, one of the UK’s fathers of Rhinoplasty surgery, before being appointed as an ENT Registrar at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. After completing his registrarship, Mr. Marais passed his FRCS in Glasgow and was appointed as Senior Registrar to Prof Arnold Maran, President of the Edinburgh Royal College of Surgeons and then one of the world’s leading head-and-neck cancer surgeons.
He spent three years working in the Professor’s department, during which time he passed the Intercollegiate fellowship and was admitted to the Specialists Register. He was seconded for academic sub-specialist training for two fellowships, one to the University of Texas (Medical Branch), USA and the other to University of Toronto, Canada. In UTMB, Mr Marais was Chief Resident – acquiring skills in a wide range of surgical procedures.
In Toronto, he worked with Prof John Rutka, a world-renowned neurotologist and Prof Michael Hawke, a co-author of the first and most influential textbook on endoscopic sinus surgery in the world. Prof. Hawke was the first ENT surgeon to introduce endoscopic sinus surgery to North America, where it quickly became gold-standard treatment and still is. Mr Marais spent many hours in theatre learning the art of this surgery from Prof Hawke himself. Whilst in Toronto, Mr. Marais was part of a humanitarian medical party which travelled to rural Thailand, Laos and Myanmar to provide ENT treatments and surgery to local people who have little/no healthcare facilities. On return to the UK, Mr Marais was a locum Consultant for one year in Edinburgh before being appointed as a Rhinologist and Nasal Plastic Surgeon in the ENT department of Northwick Park Hospital, where he has been for the last 23 years.
Teaching and academia:
Mr Marais has trained over twenty-five Registars during his years as a Consultant, many of whom are now experts and senior Rhinologists and ENT surgeons all over the world, including UK, France, Italy, Greece, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. For many of these, their first, formative job in Rhinology with Mr Marais is what has set them off on this path.
Mr. Marais has published widely in academic journals, on a variety of topics and has presented academic papers at local, national and international meetings. He has taught on many national and international training courses, aimed at teaching and improving the skills of surgical practice to trainees. He has spent many lunchtimes doing GP talks to local GP Practices on ENT matters.
Mr. Marais also has a busy medico-legal practice in which he provides expert witness reports for Solicitors to the Courts in cases involving alleged negligence.
Practice:
Currently, Mr Marais deals with many complex cases both in the NHS and in his Private Practice. He works at both Northwick Park Hospital and The Hillingdon Hospital in the NHS and also at The Clementine Churchill and Bishops Wood hospitals privately. Many of these cases are referred to him by other ENT surgeons and an increasing number come from far afield for their operations and treatments. Most of these complex cases involve sinus disease or structural (often cosmetic) abnormalities of the nose.
Mr Marais is part of the NW London Hospital Multidisciplinary (MDT) Peri-Orbital team, who deal with complex problems involving the eyes, sinuses, nose and sometimes skull-base. An example of this are nasolacrimal (tear-duct) operations which can now be done endoscopically (through the nose), rather than having external incisions. Such collaboration, with Occuloplastic, Maxillo-facial and Neuro-surgeons benefits patients greatly.
In addition, Mr.Marais also likes dealing with common, basic ENT problems in children and adults alike. Many doctors and surgeons have chosen Mr. Marais for their own or family-members’ treatment.
Mr Marais is able to see and perform surgery on children from the age of 3 at The Clementine Churchill Hospital.
Treatment success:
Mr. Marais’ patients enjoy the highest levels of success, with the vast majority of patients delighted with their outcomes. Evidence of this may be seen in the many reviews published by them: (see Top-Doctors, Yell, Google, Doctify). Many of his patients book appointments on word-of-mouth recommendations from friends or family. He gives realistic, practical advice on how long recovery is expected to take and provides detailed information on each type of surgery pre-operatively.
