In 1927, Henry left Dunedin to take up a post at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney, where Cecily joined him to assist and train in plastic surgery.
[6] Pickerill was able to demonstrate that the nurse-mother was crucial in preventing infections as infants avoided cross-infections which occurred from being handled by multiple nurses or being kept in nurseries.
[3] The Pickerills also helped to set up the plastics unit at Middlemore Hospital, travelling to Auckland to work there at the weekends.
[11][10] She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1958 Queen's Birthday Honours, for services in the field of plastic surgery.
[12] In the 1977 Queen's Silver Jubilee and Birthday Honours, she was promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, for services to medicine, especially in the field of plastic surgery.
In 2015, this archive was added to the UNESCO Memory of the World Aotearoa New Zealand Ngā Mahara o te Ao register.