Peter Arnstein’s skills as a plastic surgeon starred in the nip-and-tuck television show Extreme Makeover, where patients were given new smiles and noses, perky bosoms and fat-free tummies.

Thousands applied for the three-part series, filmed at the BMI McIndoe Surgical Centre in East Grinstead, West Sussex. Linda Dixon, Peter’s PA, says: “I am rather hoping that there won’t be a fourth, because it was so difficult fitting everything into Peter’s schedule. However, some patients had amazing results and it was wonderful to see them gain in confidence.”

Extreme Makeover sounds cosmetic, compared with reconstructions after cancer, fires, crashes and accidents of birth, but Peter views it differently, saying: “You have to get to each story and it is seldom about aesthetics. I removed a tattoo from the inside of a woman’s thigh. It was just a 15-minute procedure, and the tattoo was the name of a man. But he had forcibly engraved it and is now in jail.”

Peter was a general surgeon before deciding his focus. “Plastic surgery is specialised but a series of techniques is open to you and the whole human body is at your disposal,” he says. “There is excitement and adventure to it.”

The centre is in the grounds of the NHS Queen Victoria Hospital, and was the burns unit in which Archibald McIndoe treated his “guinea pigs”, the disfigured servicemen of the Second World War.

Today Peter is one of 20 plastic surgeons at McIndoe who still help to train military surgeons in burns and trauma. His patients include babies with prominent ears whose parents worry that they will be bullied at school. Breast reconstructions form an important part of his caseload. Peter says: “A woman will be devastated by a diagnosis of cancer, but the loss of a breast is horrible. Despite the scars, if we can give that back to her, she will turn the corner.”

Some people have advanced cancer that ulcerates. “It smells so horrible that they become lepers, and can’t eat with their families in the same room,” he says. “Removing the ulceration isn’t a cure but it is social rehabilitation.”

Peter performs 500 operations a year, runs clinics and helps to superintend building work at McIndoe, where a third operating theatre will open soon. A further commitment is a hospital in Ghana, which he helped to set up and still visits.

He could not function without Linda. “We’ve worked together for nine years. I estimate how long operations will last, but she schedules them and puts them in the right order: children and diabetics first, eyelids before noses. She schedules enough to keep me out of mischief, but not enough to overwhelm me. She normally works 8am until 4pm, but if I am still doing a clinic at 8pm, she’ll be here.

“I have never known her to lose her temper and she’s good with patients. GPs’ receptionists have a reputation but Linda never acts as a guard. Nor does she ever prejudge.”

Linda trained as a medical secretary at 18, and first went into psychiatry. After a break for her children — at 53, she is now a grandmother of two — she returned, to the Queen Victoria Hospital, and worked in plastic surgery. She recalls: “It was new to me and I had to learn so many terms that I started a little black book, to which I still refer.

“In this job, I am on the front line and the first point of contact. Organising Peter’s operating lists can mean juggling. Occasionally, an operation will overrun and I have to phone a patient to say, ‘I’m awfully sorry but . . .’”

“I organise his lists six months in advance, and put detail on them four months ahead. That means not just the day of the operation but the time, booking the operating theatre and the anaesthetist.

“First thing in the morning, I put the computer and the kettle on, and if there’s a clinic, ensure it’s set up. I also take before and after pictures of patients, pre and postoperation. It’s an important part of my job to talk to them: I can’t give medical advice but I can pick up if they have gaps in their knowledge or if their expectations are simply too high.” How does Peter manage when she's not there? “I try to go on holiday when he does. As for retirement, we will probably go at the same time.”

mcindoe-surgical.co.uk; helpline 0800 9174922

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