Laura Kate Tom, MD

Provider is directly employed by MedStar Health

Laura Tom, MD, is an attending physician in MedStar Washington Hospital Center’s Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery department, whose work is all about uplifting patients. As a general plastic surgeon, Dr. Tom uses inpatient and outpatient cosmetic and reconstructive surgical treatments to improve and/or restore the patient’s quality of life that has been affected by a wide range of conditions, including skin cancer, acute and chronic wounds, lymphedema, and hernias.

More specifically, Dr. Tom specializes in microsurgical complex reconstruction techniques, including microvascular reconstruction and super-microsurgery for lymphedema. Surgical treatment for lymphedema—the swelling in limbs that occurs after the damage or removal of lymph nodes—is a relatively new field of surgery because microscope, instrument, and suture technology have all improved to make the necessary techniques feasible. Most providers and patients are more familiar with the non-surgical means of treating lymphedema, such as massage and compression. But promising surgical approaches are now on the horizon: Using microsurgical techniques, it is sometimes possible to move tissue or attempt reconstruction to bypass lymph nodes that are not working.
 
Dr. Tom completed her surgical training at the University of Washington in Seattle ,where she helped treat a high volume of patients from all around the Pacific Northwest. She joined Medstar Washington Hospital Center after completing a specialized fellowship in microsurgery and lymphatic surgery at Hospital de Sant Pau in Barcelona, Spain. During her fellowship, she visited hospitals across Europe and Asia, learning from and networking with experts in complex reconstruction from around the world.
 
Dr. Tom’s practice at MedStar Washington Hospital Center includes pressure wound surgery, breast surgery, body contouring, complex reconstruction for trauma, cancer and limb salvage, and the surgical treatment of lymphedema. She looks forward to expanding the hospital’s practice, focusing on educating patients about new or developing procedures with the potential to save limbs that would otherwise require amputation, as well as prevent advanced lymphedema from occurring through early interventions.

Philosophy of Care
 
“My passion is trying to help patients reclaim some of what they feel they’ve lost. I credit my philosophy of care to one of the pioneers in plastic surgery from the 1500's, Gaspare Tagliacozzie, who wrote: ‘We restore, rebuild, and make whole those parts which nature hath given, but which fortune has taken away. Not so much that it may delight the eye, but that it might buoy up the spirit, and help the mind of the afflicted.’

“Whatever misfortune, whether it be trauma or cancer, has happened to the patient, our job is about trying to get them back to what and where they were before, or as close to that as possible - back to work, back to fishing, back to being themselves.

“I completed my fellowship training abroad because I wanted to work with some of the world’s leading experts in specialized lymphatic procedures, so that I could bring their wisdom and experience back to my practice here in Washington, DC. I hope to offer patients solutions they didn’t even know existed.

“The patients here at Washington Hospital Center are phenomenal, and our staff is rock solid. It is a pleasure to come to work every day.”