Burns Surgeon Perth
Burns
surgery:
“Healing physical
and emotional scars”

Burns Surgeon Perth
Burns and wound care
Every year in Australia, more than 200,000 people report getting burned. Quick first aid and immediate care for burns are crucial to stop the burn from getting worse and to prevent serious scarring.
Types of burns
Burns can be divided into two main types based on how deep they go into your skin.
Superficial burns affect the top layers of skin, making them painful and red. These can swell, turn shiny, and may blister, but usually heal well with proper first aid and wound care, leaving minimal scars.
Superficial burns in more details
Superficial burns: Common injuries following hot water scalds and flash burns from the bbq.
Deep burns go through all skin layers and might even reach into fat and muscle, appearing white, black, or charred. They might not feel as painful due to nerve damage. These serious burns almost always need surgery and special dressings to heal properly and minimise severe scarring.
Deep burns in more details
Deep burns cause damage to the entire skin thickness and may involve underlying tissues also. These burns may appear white, blackened, or charred, with surrounding areas feeling painful.
Immediate cooling and professional medical treatment are vital. Special antimicrobial dressings, like silver dressings, help prevent infection.
Burns surgery, often involving skin grafts or more advanced reconstructive options, is usually necessary to heal these burns and minimise scarring. Recovery involves comprehensive care, including physiotherapy and occupational therapy, to ensure the best possible outcome.
For both types, running cool water over the burn for 20 minutes right after the injury is key. Immediate care can greatly impact healing and reduce the need for surgery.
Scar Revision Perth
Burns surgery and reconstructive plastic surgery for burn scars (scar revision)
Burns surgery
Burns surgery is one of the most complex and challenging areas of plastic surgery.
At Forme Specialist Plastic Surgery in Perth, we perform debridement, which means carefully removing dead or damaged tissue from burns, with great precision. This critical step is followed by tailoring treatments like skin grafts, cell treatments, dermal matrices or flaps to your specific needs.
“These treatments are designed to replace or repair the damaged skin in a way that fits exactly with what each person requires.”
Dr Jeremy Rawlins, Burns Surgeon Perth
Scar revision
“Like urgent surgery, scar revision surgery involves a team of specialists, including nurses and therapists. This is important for anyone who’s dealing with functional issues from scars, like contractures, and anyone who’s worried about how their burn scars look.”
Dr Jeremy Rawlins, Burns Surgeon Perth
- Contracture release: After a burn, scars can tighten, causing a contracture. This might affect joints like fingers, elbows, or feet, or impact the normal function of areas like eyelids, mouth, breasts, or genitalia. Contracture release involves cutting and opening up tight scars, then resurfacing them with skin grafts, dermal matrices or flaps.
- Skin grafts: Skin grafts can be used to fill in defects left after contracture release or to smooth out rough scars or areas of abnormal pigmentation.
- Z-plasty and local flaps: If a skin graft isn’t flexible enough or might tighten up again, a local flap of nearby tissue is used to correct the burn scar.
- Perforator flaps: These are complex flap procedures using tiny blood vessels to move a “patch” of skin into a troublesome scar area. At Forme Specialist Plastic Surgery we specialise in these and use them across various reconstructive surgeries.
- Free flaps: This procedure involves transplanting skin and fat from one part of the body to revise a scar. It’s a complex procedure requiring microsurgical techniques and is used for very complex defects.
- Tissue expanders: Tissue expander scar revision involves stretching or expanding normal skin next to a scar and then using this expanded skin to replace the scarred area. It’s done in two stages and provides natural-looking reconstructions.
- Dermabrasion, microneedling, and ReCell: Rough or irregular scars with abnormal pigmentation can be smoothed out, and new skin cells applied using ReCell.
- Fat grafting: Fat is taken from areas like the abdomen, buttocks, or thighs and injected under and into a scarred area to improve its appearance.
- Laser therapy: Various laser treatments can be used to improve the quality of burn scars.
Perth Burn Care Surgeons
Why Forme Specialist Plastic Surgery in Perth?
At Forme Specialist Plastic Surgery, we’re deeply committed to burns surgery, under the guidance of our founder Dr Jeremy Rawlins. Since his early days in medical school, he’s been passionately committed to this specialised field.
With memberships in esteemed organisations like the Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), the British Association of Plastic Surgeons (BAPRAS), and as immediate past-president of the Australia/New Zealand Burn Association (ANZBA), Jeremy’s focus on precision and quality in reconstructive plastic surgery is clear.
Jeremy is also actively involved in research and audit within the burns team, and he teaches surgical techniques across Australia, New Zealand, and beyond.
Accolades aside, at Forme Specialist Plastic Surgery we understand burns surgery, and we know that it is intertwined with trauma and the rest of plastic surgery. This deep understanding helps us offer complete care that doesn’t just focus on the physical aspects of burns but also considers how they can affect you emotionally.
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