Prior to 1974, there was no organized burn care in Seattle. People who were severely burned were admitted to any number of area hospital intensive care units, where physicians and nurses untrained in the complexities of burn treatment did their best to treat the patient and hope that he or she survived. The closest organized burn center in the country was in San Francisco and very few patients survived long enough to be transferred there for specialized treatment.
The University of Washington and King County were only seven years into an official management agreement that made Harborview one of its two teaching hospitals. Plans had been laid to focus Harborview services on burns and trauma, and a team of highly skilled surgeons from Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas, were recruited to transform the old county hospital into one of the finest burn and trauma centers in the country.
To read more about the evolution of burn treatment in the Pacific Northwest, read Dr. Heimbach’s account of the history of the UW Burn Center at Harborview.