As Juliette Contreras, 11, strained boiling water from a pot of pasta late last month, her hand slipped and a rush of scalding water hit her abdomen and legs.
The pain was searing - "the worst pain of my life," she said. As her father called an ambulance, Juliette tried to remain calm. She avoided looking at her red, blistering skin.
Unlike nearly all serious Southern Arizona burn patients in recent years, the Tucson sixth-grader did not have to go to Phoenix to get specialized medical care for her second-degree burns.
During the past four years, since Tucson's only burn center at Carondelet St. Mary's Hospital closed, an estimated 200 Southern Arizona patients per year have had to go to Phoenix for treatment at the Arizona Burn Center at Maricopa Medical Center.
Many are children like Juliette, who suffer serious burns in kitchen accidents and are sent to Phoenix by local hospitals and first responders.
The University of Arizona Medical Center-University Campus has slowly been adding burn treatment to its trauma program since Dr. Peter Rhee joined the Tucson hospital in 2007.
Last month, the program took a major step forward when Rhee added burn specialist Dr. Gary Vercruysse to his staff. That means an increasing number of seriously burned Tucson patients will be able to stay here. Rhee and Vercruysse expect all patients with burns on 40 percent or less of their bodies will be able to stay in Tucson for both trauma care and follow-up treatment.
Better for families
Rhee's plan is to decrease the number of Southern Arizonans getting burn treatment in Phoenix from 200 to a handful over the next year. Vercruysse's goal is to eventually get that number down to zero.
Adding to the inpatient program at UA Medical Center, Vercruysse will run an outpatient burn center at the UA Medical Center-South Campus, which is the old Kino Hospital. He'll also be spreading word about the new program in the community and with local fire officials.
The UA Medical Center's burn program is the first inpatient burn program in Southern Arizona since Carondelet St. Mary's closed its unit in 2008. The St. Mary's program operated for 40 years as both an outpatient and inpatient program, most recently with eight beds. A Carondelet St. Mary's spokesperson said the hospital's wound center continues to treat patients with less serious burns on an outpatient basis.
Rhee said it's important to keep patients local when possible because sending them to Phoenix is expensive, and it's disruptive for families. Burn patients may spend weeks or months in Phoenix.
Phoenix stay was hard
Tucson resident Sheri Lozano spent 49 days at the Arizona Burn Center this year, following a Jan. 26 house fire.
Her convalescence in Phoenix took a toll on family members, particularly her husband, Larry. The trip to Phoenix was hard on elderly relatives, who couldn't visit as often as they wanted, Larry Lozano said.
Also, friends and family sometimes arrived at Sheri's room only to find out she was having unscheduled treatments, and they'd end up driving back to Tucson without seeing her, he said. As the days passed, Larry felt increasingly isolated.
"You need friends and family for support, but I found myself alone up there a lot," said Larry Lozano, who is 60. "I'd just lost everything and I was breaking down."
While staying by his wife's side, he was handling legal issues related to the fire, arranging for people to take care of the couple's pets, and traveling back to Tucson when he could to care for his ailing mother. He couldn't work, so money was tight. He also had his own health issue - a broken ankle.
"Staying in Tucson would have made a difference for us," he said.
Iraq, Afghanistan veteran
Vercruysse, the new director of the burn program, came to Tucson from Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, where he was co-director of a burn center founded in the 1940s. Smaller programs in the South have closed, making Grady a regional treatment facility.
Vercruysse is also a major in the U.S. Air Force Reserve and has done months-long surgery stints in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Before Rhee started at UA Medical Center, virtually all patients with serious burns and in need of inpatient care went to Phoenix. Rhee began developing his program by treating all patients with burns to 10 percent or less of their bodies without sending them north. The addition of Vercruysse takes it to a new level, he said.
"I've been recruiting for this for years. I'd been holding off until the exact right person came through. The number of burn doctors is very small, and they are a precious commodity," Rhee said. "With Gary in place we'll be able to take on more difficult cases."
In Vercruysse's first week on the job, there was a burn patient every day. About half of the burn patients who come into the trauma unit are children, Rhee said. Others include firefighters and people with chemical burns. Some are burned in road accidents. While the number of burn patients is small - currently about 15 per month at the UA Medical Center - Rhee said it's important to meet patients' needs here.
"We want to be a referral center and give the city and the region capabilities we didn't have before," Rhee said.
The hospital's fundraising arm is already collecting donations to enhance the local burn program. Among other things, Rhee would like to build a "hydro room" as a place to clean and bathe patients and do wound care.
Leadership opportunity
Vercruysse said the Tucson job gave him a new leadership opportunity and a chance to continue his research in burn wound care.
"Tucson is a very nice place to raise a family, and the opportunity to work with Dr. Rhee and to start a burn program was really interesting to me," he said.
Rebecca Contreras, Juliette's mom, says she's relieved her daughter could be treated in Tucson. Juliette was released from UA Medical Center - Diamond Children's after a couple of days. She'll go to follow-up outpatient treatments for her burns there, too.
Juliette is an avid cook and especially likes to bake. Her accident has not dampened her culinary passion, she said. She plans on baking cupcakes and cookies for the ambulance and fire officials who took care of her.
"I can't do jujitsu for a couple of months," she said. "I will probably have scars, but I don't think I'll have any other problems."
long-range PLAN
A burn program, and eventually a burn center that's verified by the American Burn Association and the American College of Surgeons, has always been part of Rhee's long-term vision for the UA Medical Center. Currently, 62 such centers exist in the U.S., including the Arizona Burn Center at Maricopa Medical Center, which isΒ the only verified center in the state.
Also in Rhee's vision: a freestanding trauma center on the UA Medical Center campus.
by the numbers
Burn incidence and treatment in the United States, 2011
β’ Burn injuries receiving medical treatment: 450,000.
β’ Fire and burn deaths per year: 3,500 - an estimated 3,000 deaths from residential fires and 500 from other causes, including vehicle and aircraft crashes, and contact with electricity, chemicals, hot liquids or other substances.
β’ Hospitalizations for burn injury: 45,000, including 25,000 at hospitals with burn centers.
Source: American Burn Association National Burn Repository
Contact reporter Stephanie Innes at sinnes@azstarnet.com or 573-4134.
