Word: burnes
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Still, the best covering for a burn is the patient's own skin. Taken from uninjured areas, in sheets as thin as 0.025 centimeters (0.010 inches), it is sometimes perforated and stretched, and then applied as a mesh over the burn. It thus can cover an area three to six times as large as that from which it was taken and acts as a scaffolding for growth of new skin...
...barely able to eat; yet their high metabolism rate means they must consume as many as 6,000 calories a day. Lest the limbs become stiff, exercises must be started almost immediately, despite the fact that any movement can be extremely painful. Though hospital stays have been shortened, many burn victims remain from 30 to 60 days and some are kept a year or more, not only because they are undergoing extensive skin grafts but because portions of the body may have to be entirely reconstructed. In fact, says Brooke's Colonel Basil A. Pruitt, the army...
...Angels. Because burn patients require constant attention, the centers must have large staffs. Nurses must be at bedside 24 hours a day, and at least one physician must always be near by, to say nothing of a host of aides, ranging from cleaners to technicians who prepare the IV fluids. In some hospitals, because of the horrible nature of the injuries, few staff members remain in burn units for more than six months at a time. Those who stay on win the admiration of their colleagues. Says Spokesman Kenneth Dale of the Crozer-Chester Medical Center, a major burn facility...
Though prompt application of new flexible splints and pressure bandages lessens scars and skin contractures, burn victims are often left with disfiguring features that even the best plastic surgeons cannot eliminate. Says In-Service Education Director Carol Fulton of Boston Shriners: "They don't go home like Cinderella and live happily ever after." To prepare patients for re-entry into the outside world, many burn centers have added psychiatrists, psychologists and other therapists to their staffs...
Expensive equipment and large staff-to-patient ratios (10 or 15 to 1) make burn care extremely expensive. Daily costs run from $350 to $750. Also, occupancy rates in burn units may be low for long stretches. For these reasons, some officials would like burn treatment kept part of the regular acute-care facilities of hospitals. Burn specialists disagree. They argue that burn centers not only provide patients with a level of treatment unavailable anywhere else but also make economic sense. Insists Dr. John Converse, head of reconstructive plastic surgery at N.Y.U. Medical Center: "Good burn centers eventually save money...