Burn Care

Comprehensive Burn Care Center

From the onset of any burn injury, until the day a patient is fully healed, burn care is a unique specialty that requires a specialized team to manage these injuries. The MetroHealth Burn Care Team begins with our first responders and continues with our support groups long after you are healed. The MetroHealth Burn Care Center is one of two verified adult and pediatric burn centers in the State of Ohio. We obtain verification every three years by our credentialing organization, the American Burn Association, and received verification in 2021 through 2023.

MetroHealth is the only burn care center in Ohio verified for the care of both adults and children by the American Burn Association and the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma. Our center treats more than 1,700 burn injuries a year, including every imaginable burn—those caused by electricity, lightning, chemicals and smoke inhalation. We also treat injuries you might not think of as burns, like frostbite. With recent advances in care, many people survive burns covering over 75 percent of their bodies. 

Our Burn Care Services

Our highly specialized facilities, equipment and staff allow us to provide a full range of services:

• Acute burn treatment, including critical care (ICU management), surgical care and dressing changes. 
• Burn Outpatient Clinic. Not every burn seen at our center requires a hospital stay. That's why we offer an outpatient clinic for patients referred with less severe burns. The clinic operates on a Monday - Friday schedule and is staffed with a nurse practitioner highly trained in the specialty of burn care. Our clinic is equipped to provide safe, effective care for all types of burns. To schedule an appointment, please call 216-778-1775 between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 3 p.m.
• Treatment for other complex wounds. In addition to our burn care expertise for thermal, chemical, inhalational and electrical injuries, our specialized team treats a variety of other large, complex wounds. These include rare necrotizing soft tissue infections caused by "flesh-eating bacteria," traumatic injuries that often result from vehicle crashes and involve extensive loss of skin, and other extremely complex wounds for which many large hospitals lack the resources to treat. We also have developed a specialized management for frostbite injuries, allowing us to decrease the likelihood of amputations and improve function and quality of life for patients.

Ongoing Rehabilitation: Helping Burn Survivors Recover

• Adult Burn Survivor Recovery Group
• Other Support Programs—such as burn camps (offered twice annually) and other recreational activities—help children recovering from burns move forward after their injuries.
• Services to help improve burn injuries, including reconstructive surgery.
• Advanced laser treatments for burn scar revision. 

Burn Care Center Celebrating 50 Years of Service

Half a century after its founding, MetroHealth’s Comprehensive Burn Care Center is considered one of the most advanced in the nation, known for both its medical innovation and its leadership on ethics.

One of only two verified adult and pediatric burn centers in Ohio, the center in 2021 once again obtained verification (a process done every three years) by the American Burn Association.

But once MetroHealth wasn’t even in the running to host a burn center.

Shriners Hospital for Children built its first pediatric burn hospital in 1966 on the campus of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Not long after, hospital officials traveled to Cleveland to scout a possible midwestern location, as they looked to create a national care network. The closest burn centers to Cleveland at the time were in Pittsburgh and Louisville.

“The only hospitals they would consider were either University Hospitals or Cleveland Clinic,” said Richard B. Fratianne, MD, a retired surgeon at MetroHealth who served as director of the Comprehensive Burn Care Center here for more than 30 years until stepping down in 2002.

The team from Shriners Hospital ended up not choosing either location. Instead, they opened a pediatric burn hospital in Cincinnati in 1968.

But their brief flirtation with Cleveland inspired Dr. John Davis to think about starting a burn center himself. Davis was a trauma surgeon and director of surgery at what was then Cleveland City Hospital. A Korean War veteran, Davis purportedly was one of the inspirations for Hawkeye Pierce, the iconoclastic surgeon at the heart of Richard Hooker’s antiwar novel M*A*S*H and the classic film and television series that followed.

Davis believed that with a dedicated space for burn patients, the hospital could provide specialized treatment and care they wouldn’t routinely receive. He convinced the hospital’s Board of Trustees, including Cleveland Fire Chief John Gannon, to buy into the idea.

But in early 1969, before his dream could launch, Davis left Cleveland to become chief of surgery at the Medical Center Hospital of Vermont. The burn center remained in limbo until physician leaders convinced a reluctant Fratianne – who had completed his residency and fellowship in general surgery in 1965 at City Hospital – to give up a thriving practice doing advanced cancer surgery.

The center officially opened in summer 1970 with Fratianne at the helm. There were then fewer than 10 such centers in the United States. Initially short-handed, Fratianne eventually assembled a multi-disciplinary team of two dozen people who met regularly to discuss patient care. During those meetings, everyone’s opinions were encouraged and valued.

Today, the Burn Care Center team includes doctors, nurses, therapists, a nutritionist, a medical ethicist and a dietitian who meet weekly to talk through each patient’s individual treatment plan.

Finding a Home

During its first two years, the Burn Care Center team operated out of a vacant emergency department with no air conditioning. An isolation room was fashioned out of a steel frame with a drape.

An additional bed made of aluminum tubing and heavy plastic was used to treat the most serious burns. Hydrotherapy tubs were in the new physical therapy department. There was no distinct inpatient area set aside for burns other than the ICU beds.

In 1972, the Burn Care Center moved onto the 11^th floor of the newly constructed West Tower. The center occupied the entire floor and included a large treatment room, hydrotherapy room and eight patient care rooms.

Since its opening, the Burn Care Center has received tremendous support from area firefighters, who have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to go toward patient care and research. A partnership forged in 1986 between the Northern Ohio Fire Fighters, Northeast Ohio Fire Chiefs’ Association and MetroHealth led to the creation of the Aluminum Cans for Burned Children Foundation. ACBC raises money that pays for treatment and rehabilitation not covered by insurance as well as clothing, toys and other items.

ACBC also raises money for Camp Phoenix, a free, four-day summer and winter camp for pediatric and adolescent burn patients. The first summer camp was held in 1988 in Akron and drew 35 patients.

MetroHealth formed support groups for adolescents (believed to be the first of its kind), young adults and older adults. As more people began surviving serious burns, the need for these groups grew.

The Need For Outpatient Service

The Burn Care Center is housed on 3-West in the Glick Center; its official name is the John A. Gannon Center for Burns and Trauma.

The new center has 12 inpatient beds, 4 treatment rooms, a therapy gym, and family room. The center also is home to the burn outpatient clinic, located adjacent to the inpatient unit.

Treating patients without having to admit them for what could be a lengthy stay revolutionized outpatient burn care, said Charles Yowler, MD, the center’s interim director and a MetroHealth physician since 1996.

“Traditionally, everyone got admitted. That was very expensive and a huge disruption to the patient’s family,” he said. Even if patients’ burns weren’t life-threatening, they often stayed as an inpatient if dressings needed to be changed every day. Outpatient care wasn’t an option since it was only available one day a week.

Once the outpatient clinic was set up, inpatient numbers dropped by half, to just under 200 a year, Yowler said.

Remaining Relevant in an Uncertain Future

At its peak, the United States had around 400 burn centers. Now just over 100 remain and one-quarter of those are in danger of closing because there aren’t enough patients – the result of safer homes and workplaces thanks to building code enforcement and safer appliances. The patients that are there don’t need to stay as long.

Like most burn centers, MetroHealth’s has seen a reduction in the number of burn cases. To offset that decline, MetroHealth is treating more patients with major wounds, including complex wounds from diabetes and rare infections, and has developed a specialized management for frostbite injuries.

The mission continues to evolve, evidenced by the creation in 2015 of MetroHealth’s Institute of Burn Ethics. It’s the only institute in the United States dedicated to ethical issues in burn and complex wound care.

The Burn Care Center continues to attract the brightest trauma burn surgeons and nurse practitioners. The outpatient clinic treats more than 700 new burn patients a year. Working as a team – embodying the motto Together Each Accomplishes More – MetroHealth’s commitment to heal continues.