Physicians at the UW Medicine Center for Reconstructive Surgery understand how important your body is to you. Our mission is to restore its form and function to the greatest possible extent for patients whose bodies are changed by disease, trauma or congenital deformity. We also provide cosmetic surgery to patients who want to transform their appearance.

Deep knowledge of anatomy guides our surgeons to recognize bodies’ structural and functional deficits, and locate replacement tissues, such as skin, blood vessels, muscles, tendons and fat, that best match the need. Our surgeons perform complex microvascular surgeries in which a flap of skin and underlying tissue is moved, with blood vessels intact, to a new site. Such procedures give patients the best chance for restored function, sensation and appearance and require expertise not broadly available in the Pacific Northwest.

Our team specializes in repairing complex and large wounds that result from trauma or cancer’s removal. This includes reconstruction of the head and neck, thrum and extremities. As a center of excellence for breast and nipple reconstruction, we care for cancer patients after mastectomy to restore lost form. Our surgeons routinely perform the deep inferior epigastric perforator (DIEP) flap for breast reconstruction, which uses patients’ own tissue while preserving abdominal muscle.