This series of posts will focus on a different kind of wound–one you won’t be suturing.

I’ll be sharing my thoughts on acute burn wound injury. The information below is from my review and interpretation of the most up-to-date burn literature, as well as conversations with the burn surgeon who services my hospital network. I first became interested in this topic when I lectured on it at ACEP11 and ACEP12, and this series of posts serves as a compendium to an updated iteration presented at High Risk Emergency Medicine in Hawaii February 2015.

Topics discussed include:

• Burn Injury Depth Grading
• Total Body Surface Area assessment, the use of smartphone applications to this end, and fluid resuscitation
• Initial management and first aid for minor burn injury
• A discussion of dressings used in the care of the outpatient burn wound
• How and when to perform escharotomy