Columbia Standard

CHARLESTON, S.C. (Nov. 16, 2022) – The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and Shriners Hospitals for Children (Shriners Children’s) have announced an affiliation to elevate pediatric burn care and research at the MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital. This is a component of the comprehensive South Carolina Burn Center.

As a part of this affiliation, Shriners Children’s announced a $3 million grant to establish the Shriners Children’s Endowed Professorship in Pediatric Burn Care. The funds will be matched by funding from MUSC and support the only pediatric burn care center in the state, which includes a specialized pediatric burn unit. The affiliation’s goal is to establish cutting-edge research and best-in-class pediatric burn care delivery.

“This collaboration helps ensure that the children of South Carolina will have continued access to high-quality and comprehensive burn care,” said David J. Cole, M.D., FACS, MUSC president. “It’s a natural maturation of our work to date with Shriners and further, I am incredibly excited to see how this affiliation and resultant research will help synergize the care our top-notch team is already providing to patients and families from all over South Carolina. This is a great example of public and private entities coming together in the best interest of the citizens of our state.”

Craven added, “For 100 years, Shriners Children’s has provided hope and healing to children. Through our collaboration with MUSC, we can continue our mission of helping more kids closer to home.”

Rohit Mittal, M.D., has been named the Shriners Children’s Endowed Professorship in Pediatric Burn Care at MUSC. In this role, Mittal will treat pediatric burn patients and augment the team at MUSC in their current efforts to perform innovative research that improves quality of care and life of burned children.

Mittal is a trauma surgeon who is double board certified in general surgery and surgical critical care. Since 2019, he has served as director of the Grady Memorial Hospital Burn Reconstruction Program. Grady has one of the nation’s more experienced and respected burn units, as verified by the American Burn Association. Mittal completed his education and training at Emory, and a burn fellowship at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) and Shriners Children’s Texas. Mittal is scheduled to begin his new role at MUSC in November.

Shriners Children’s, a world leader in burn care, has also committed to helping MUSC obtain American Burn Association (ABA) Burn Center Verification. Three Shriners Children’s locations providing burn care are accredited by the American Burn Association (ABA) and the American College of Surgeons (ACS) as verified pediatric burn centers: Shriners Children’s Boston, Shriners Children’s Northern California and Shriners Children’s Texas. Verified burn centers have met the highest standards of care for burn patients, from injury through rehabilitation.

MUSC President David Cole, M.D., FACS (center), listens to a speaker at the news conference.

“The arrival of Dr. Mittal and the Shriner’s collaboration represents an important milestone for the South Carolina Burn Center,” said Steven Kahn, M.D., South Carolina Burn Center director and chief of burn surgery. “It will facilitate growth and development and allow us to provide the highest quality, patient- and family-centered care even beyond the borders of our state. This collaboration represents a novel paradigm in burn care with the potential to become a model for regional delivery of care around the United States.”

The comprehensive South Carolina Burn Center, based in Charleston at MUSC, was established by the South Carolina legislature in 2019 through a proviso which enabled funding for adult burn care, in addition to the pediatric burn services already in place. Prior to this initiative, complex burn care had not been available in South Carolina since 1997.

The center has an expert team of multidisciplinary burn providers and performs an important public health service for the state in providing care to patients of all ages. Since its opening in 2020, the center has been lauded as the first burn center in the United States to perform a minimally invasive skin graft; earned a National Institutes of Health burn telemedicine K Award; and for the past four out of six quarters, received the nation’s top ranking in survival.

Original source can be found here.