Fifty Years of Burn Care at Shriners Hospitals for Children, Galveston

Abstract

More than 50 years ago, Shriners Hospitals for Children expanded their philanthropy to include care for burned children. In so doing, the effects of their work weightily expanded from rehabilitation and quality of life outcomes to include survival proper. As the first facility dedicated to the care of burned children, originally designated the Shriners Burn Institute, the Galveston hospital remains the cornerstone of this endeavor. Shriners maintains charitable pediatric hospitals, provide care irrespective of the patient's or the family's ability to pay, and promote research. The sole criterion for admission at Shriners Hospitals for Children is the determination by a surgeon at a Shriners hospital that "the child's trouble may be corrected or improved." This philanthropic effort to provide medical care for children is one expression of the human commonality recognized by Shriners. In this article, we provide some background information on how this hospital came into existence as well as a global summary of its interventions toward greater survival and more complete rehabilitation of burned children. Based on the findings presented herein, we assert that there is less suffering and less loss of life due to childhood burns today than in previous years. We attribute much of this improvement to the simple voluntary collective decision by Shriners to provide alms for burned children.

The Correlation Between Quality of Life and Acceptability of Disability in Patients With Facial Burn Scars

“…They still attach great importance to the facial appearance changes caused by sudden accidents and show higher attention to their own abilities and appearance. Patients will be more inclined to think that burn scars lead to the disability of their bodily functions, thus affecting their sex life (Capek et al, 2018).…”

Global Surgery: Burn Outreach by Shriners Children's Texas

“…The Shriners Hospital is a world referral center for burns. 15 It receives patients from multiple countries in the Americas (Central America: Belize, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, and Panama; South America: Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela; and Mexico). Patients also have come from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East (►Table 1).…”

Consensus on the management of pediatric deep partial-thickness burn wounds (2023 edition)

“…However, if circumstances do not permit, we recommend initiating conservative treatment and assessing the need for skin grafting based on the progress of the wound. Compared to surgical treatment within 72 hours after the injury, a strategy of conservative treatment within 2 weeks, followed by a decision on whether to perform skin grafting based on wound progress, can significantly reduce the scope of the surgery and intraoperative blood loss as well as shorten the operation time [ 22 , 23 ]. After the first tangential excision, the wound should be covered with allogeneic or heterogeneous skin, animal visceral membranes, and other biological dressings or biosynthetic dressings with good moisturizing properties.…”