Pediatric Burn Surgery

[Saluki]

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Anyone know how competitive this sort of program would be to get into? Would you go into a surgical residency first or a pediatric residency?

 

[droliver]

It's not really a subspecialty as such. Peds burn centers (a la the Shriners or Scotish Rites centers) are usually run by fellowship-trained Burn Surgeons or Plastic Surgeons or some combination. Peds surgeons may or may not be involved depending upon their 1) interest & 2) size of the burn (larger ones tend to be triaged to the tertiary centers which quite often aren't run by Peds Surgery). At our institution, the burn call alternates weekly b/w a private plastic surgery group & the peds surg group. Larger burns are triaged to the Shriner's Burn Center in Cinncinnatti because they overwhelm your resources. The pediatrons play little if any role @ any stage of the management at the 3 burn centers I've worked in

 

[Winged Scapula]

Burn fellowships are generally open to those trained in General or Plastic surgery (a Pediatric Surgeon would be first trained in General so would obviously be eligible as would a Trauma Surgeon).

If you desire to be a Burn Surgeon, your first stop is either an Integrated Plastics residency or a General Surgery residency followed by advanced training. Doing a Pediatric residency won't secure you work doing surgical procedures in a specialized Burn unit, but you could work as a liason with those who do.