A scar should be documented as living tissue, changing function, and a person's actual experience—not a single settlement photograph.

Begin with the wound and procedure history: mechanism, depth and location if clinically determined, closure, graft, donor site, infection, dehiscence, later surgery, and healing milestones. Preserve hospital photographs and measurements when available. Note whether a scar crosses a joint, affects the face, neck, hand, foot, breast, or sensory area, or involves multiple surfaces. The cause case still needs its own liability proof; scar documentation cannot replace how the injury occurred.

Take serial photographs with consent, privacy, consistent distance, lighting, orientation, neutral background, and a scale where medically appropriate. Record date, photographer, device, edits, and whether the image shows rest, facial expression, or maximum comfortable motion. Do not manipulate contrast or use only the most dramatic image. Clinical documentation may include color, thickness, pliability, vascularity, pigmentation, adherence, sensation, pain, itch, dryness, fragility, ulceration, and range of motion.

Track treatment and response rather than listing options from memory. Records may address moisturization, sun protection, compression, silicone, splinting, massage, therapy, injections, laser, grafting, flap, tissue expansion, revision, pain or itch medication, and counseling. A recommendation, a discussion, and an authorized plan are different states. Note why care was delayed, declined, contraindicated, unavailable, unaffordable, or still under consideration.

Functional examples should be concrete: inability to fully open a hand, turn the neck, raise an arm, close an eyelid, form words, tolerate a shoe, kneel, sit, sleep on one side, or work around heat. Measure range of motion and task performance when appropriate. A hidden scar can restrict movement or cause substantial symptoms. A visible scar may have limited physical restriction but meaningful social or occupational effect.

Document the person's own experience without scripting it. Clothing choices, grooming, photographs, public interaction, intimacy, parenting, religious or cultural practices, exercise, swimming, work presentation, interviews, customer contact, and avoidance may change. Family and coworkers can describe observations. A mental-health diagnosis, however, requires a qualified clinician and should not be inferred because a scar is visible.

Use patient-reported information with context. Burn Model System research reports pain, itch, tightness, fragility, movement restriction, and other scar-related morbidity in some survivors. Group findings do not predict this person's course. Prior skin conditions, earlier scars, body image, occupation, mental health, and social context belong in the record because fair causation includes both change and continuity.

Prove the event, responsible party, and causal wound, then connect the scar to that wound through contemporaneous treatment records. Alternatives include prior injury, infection, surgery, healing complications, sun exposure, later trauma, or underlying conditions. They do not erase a claim, but clinicians and experts should address them rather than rely on assumptions.

Permanence and future treatment require timing and foundation. Scars may mature, and treatment may change appearance, symptoms, or function without eliminating every effect. Oklahoma law may require expert testimony on future pain, permanent injury, or medical expense. A current qualified opinion should address permanence; elapsed time is not proof.

Separate past medical expense, future care, pain, impairment, disfigurement, lost earnings, earning capacity, and other legally available damages without duplication. Tie age, location, occupation, symptoms, function, treatment burden, and lived effect to admissible evidence and current Oklahoma law. Other people's verdicts or photographs do not measure this person.

Ask the specialist to identify the problem, goal, timing, frequency, duration, risks, alternatives, follow-up, and expected course without treatment. Therapy may address motion; dermatology or plastic surgery, texture, pigment, or contour; pain care, neuropathic symptoms; counseling, diagnosed psychological effects. Do not assume disciplines recommend the same endpoint.

Cost evidence should identify provider, market, facility and professional components, anesthesia, therapy, supplies, medication, travel, revisions, and replacement. Estimates may become stale. Insurance authorization does not prove tort value, and denial does not disprove medical necessity. Economic analysis should identify price date and assumptions.

For a child, growth may change the practical effect of a scar or contracture, but future consequences require pediatric and reconstructive expertise. Document school, development, sports, social experience, and later work without stereotypes. Settlement structure, court approval, guardianship, privacy, and benefit consequences are legal issues separate from prognosis.