Miss Alexandra Murray graduated from the University of Leeds medical school in 2000. During basic surgical training in London she developed a passion for plastic surgery and related research. She subsequently undertook an MD in Yorkshire on the use of angiogenesis biomarkers to develop patient-tailored chemotherapy regimes in melanoma care. She then completed her NTN in plastic surgery in Yorkshire and, after achieving the FRCS(Plast) in 2012, she completed fellowships in Australia, spending time doing microsurgical reconstruction at St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne, and then with the Victoria Adult Burns Service and at the Western Australian Burns Service where she was mentored by Professor Fiona Wood. While in Australia, Miss Murray stayed active in research, working on CO2 laser therapy for scarring in burns and the use of autologous spray-on skin.

Having returned to the UK, Miss Murray became a substantive consultant at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, and is now clinical lead for burns and head of department. She combines her research commitments with a busy clinical workload in reconstructive surgery. Her current academic and clinical areas of focus include conducting a pilot study into the use of enzymatic debridement within UK burns care and setting up a CO2 laser service for burn-related scar therapy.

How did you become involved with Restore?

Restore was one of the reasons why I was attracted to work at Stoke-Mandeville and I had heard about some of Restore’s work e.g on thermal cooling and the scratch-scar model. I had also met Professor McGrouther previously and knew that Restore was heavily involved in burns and scarring research, which is a real passion for me. In particular, I wanted to remain active in research while continuing my clinical work.

What do you hope to achieve on the SAC?

One of the things which I learnt from working with Fiona Wood in a highly dynamic burns department in Western Australia is the importance of bringing the patient perspective to the table, so that stakeholders and the wider public understand the value of the work we do, so this is definitely something which I will be focussing on.

In addition, I will be the principal investigator on the BEST scar study; a prospective randomised controlled trial looking into the efficacy of silicone therapy, put together by Mr Jonathon Pleat, Restore’s Director of Research.

By Majid Al-Khalil, Restore Student Fellow