During his university education in Manchester Mr Hodgkinson completed a PhD in cleft lip and palate whilst pursuing his medical degree and graduating with Honours in 1985.  His training in general surgery concluded with his FRCS in 1989.  Higher plastic surgical training in Manchester, Slough, Newcastle and South Wales concluded with a year in the highly respected Australian Craniofacial Unit in Adelaide where he was senior registrar and locum consultant.  In Australia he helped write the Early Management of Severe Burns course that is now the current standard teaching in the UK.

​

Mr Hodgkinson was appointed as a consultant plastic surgeon in Newcastle in 1996.  Initially he had a broad area of specialist practice including cleft surgery, head and neck cancer and breast reconstruction.  He introduced mandibular distraction surgery to Newcastle. This surgery is both aesthetic and functional with an almost perfect record of tracheostomy removal in children with small jaws.  Other notable achievements included the development of the craniofacial and skull base service and introduction of craniofacial access surgery as a routine, as well as the first bilateral autologous tissue breast reconstruction in the north-east.