Basil A. Pruitt, Jr., MD, a physician at UT Health San Antonio, who is considered the father of burn care, is still treating patients at the age of 88, according to San Antonio Express News.
Dr. Pruitt served as commander of the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research in San Antonio for 27 years, starting in 1968. He is widely credited for pioneering the field of burn medicine through his work and research at ISR. His first paper ever published highlighted the mortality rates for 1,100 consecutive burns treated at the facility.
"'The research] told people that if you were a young adult in the United States at that time and got a 43 percent burn, not even half of the body surface, you had a 50-50 chance of living or dying," Dr. Pruitt told San Antonio Express News. "And that's really what convinced me that working in the field of burn management had a future because the outlook was so bad that you could make a real improvement with appropriate studies to find out what to do."
To date, Dr. Pruitt has written 469 papers in peer-reviewed publications, 181 chapters in textbooks and 15 books and monographs. He is also the most cited researcher in burn care in the past 50 years. One of Dr. Pruitt's papers outlined a modified Brooke Formula, used to guide the resuscitation of severely burned patients, which cut fatalities to 3.4 percent out of in 1970. However, Dr. Pruitt said he considers his biggest achievement to be developing effective antimicrobial burn creams to help prevent wound infections.
Today, Dr. Pruitt serves as the Dr. Ferdinand P. Herff Chair in surgery at UT Health San Antonino and continues to consult regularly for the ISR.
More articles on integration and physician issues:
Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Richard Rothman dies at 81
Baylor St. Luke's replaces heart transplant program chief
Viewpoint: How telling stories gives physicians more grit