2006 - Basil Arthur Pruitt, Jr., MD (1930…)
San Antonio, Texas, USA

During the last four decades of the twentieth century, Dr. Pruitt became the most influential physician in the field of burns. His career in burns began during his residency when he was drafted into the United States Army and appointed as Chief, Burn Study Branch, United States Army Surgical Research Unit, Brooke Army Medical Center, Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Subsequently, after completing surgical training and a deployment to Vietnam, he was appointed, in 1968, as Commander and Director, US Army Institute of Surgical Research (USAISR), a position he held until his retirement from the Army at the end of 1995.

During his tenure the USAISR became a model of burn care, education and productive research. As a solon in the field of burns and trauma, Dr. Pruitt has been invited to deliver innumerable prestigious eponymic lectureships, received every applicable award, honored by election to the presidency of nine surgical societies and is the president-elect of the Shock Society (President 2007-2008), fulfilled countless visiting professorships and many have sought his counsel. However, his greatest and enduring legacy is the mentorship of a cadre of physicians who have become leaders not only in burn care and research but also in the broad field of medicine. The list includes 10 past presidents of the American Burn Association, 45 directors of burn centers and units in the United States and abroad, 17 departmental chairs and the current president of the International Society for Burn Injuries, Dr. David Herndon.

In 1975 he was appointed Associate Editor of the Journal of Trauma and then, in 1994, its Editor, a position in which he continues to work.

2002 - Charles Rufus Baxter, MD (1929 - 2004)
Dallas, Texas, USA

Dr. Baxter is best known as the author of the Parkland (Parkland Memorial Hospital, Dallas) or Baxter Formula* that is almost universally used as the starting point in the fluid resuscitation of patients with burns. However, he had career long influence in the field of burns. He established the first National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA, sponsored Masters Program in Burn Nursing which produced 14 graduates. At the University of Texas (Southwestern) Medical School, Dallas, Dr. Baxter supervised the training of 43 Burn Fellows. He was an early leader in skin banking employing freeze drying for the preservation of allograft skin. He subsequently showed that cryopreserved dermal allograft supported vacuum blister-prepared sheets and expanded epidermal autograft for the closure of full-thickness burn wounds (J Trauma 1985; 25: 106). Dr. Baxter hosted the Seventh Annual National Burn Seminar (1967) during which a committee was appointed to draft a charter and constitution for the formation of the American Burn Association. He served as its fifth President and the first Editor-in-Chief of its official journal, The Journal of Burn Care and Rehabilitation (1980-1997).

1998 - M. Gösta S. Arturson, MD (1927…)
Uppsala, Sweden

Dr. Gösta Arturson’s career long intrigue with burn injury and illness began with the preparation of his Doctor of Medicine thesis: Pathophysiological aspects of the burn syndrome with special reference to liver injury and alteration of capillary permeability. (Acta Chir Scand Suppl. 1961; Suppl 274: 1- 135) His research skills were enhanced while a Fellow at the Industrial Injuries and Burns Research Unit, Birmingham Accident Hospital, Birmingham, England in 1963. As an assiduous investigator and accomplished scholar the publications of his life’s work show contributions of fundamental importance that have augmented our knowledge in the pathophysiology of the burn syndrome specifically in the areas of microvascular permeability, inflammatory mediators, inhalation injury, the affinity of hemoglobin for oxygen, hypermetabolism, energy expenditure, nutrition, infection, immunology, liver function, kidney function and fluid resuscitation.

Of additional importance are Dr. Arturson’s contributions in Disaster Medicine especially in the organizational aspects of emergency relief for mass casualty burns and for the prevention of nuclear war.

Special Humanitarian Award-1998 - Nelson Picolo, MD (1927 – 1988)
Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil

This special award was given posthumously in recognition of the monumental work of Dr. Nelson Picolo who devoted his entire professional life to the organization and delivery of and innovations in burn care in the central plateau state of Goiás, Brazil. During his life time the programs he developed treated over 74,000 patients with burns. The award was given to support continuation of Dr. Picolo’s work by his wife and three children.

1994 - John Francis Burke, MD (1922…)
Boston Massachusetts, USA

Dr. Burke’s career has been one of remarkable productivity. In 1961 he published the experimental work that established the scientific basis for the use of prophylactic antibiotics in the field of surgery (Surgery 1961; 50: 161). This work was conceptualized during his tenure as a Research Fellow at the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, London, England, 1955, and completed during his early years on the surgical faculty of the Harvard Medical School, Boston Massachusetts, USA.

Subsequently, as the Chief of Staff at the Shriners Burns Institute in Boston, 1968-1980, he provided the leadership for two significant advances in burn care. First, he reintroduced and championed early excision of deep burns. Although early excision of burn wounds had been attempted previously, it failed to improve outcome. The constellation of advances in anesthesia management, critical care, and the replacement of blood and blood products provided an opportunity for the successful reentry of early burn excision into the armamentarium of burn surgeons (J. Trauma 1974: 14: 389; Ann Surg 1986; 204: 272). Second, Dr. Burke provided the stimulus to the research effort at the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with I.V. Yannas in the development of “artificial skin.” The dermal portion of this bilayer material consists of porous collagen-chrondroitin 6-sulfate arranged in a pattern closely resembling the fiber pattern of normal dermis (J Biomed Mater Research 1980; 14: 65)(Ibid 1980; 14: 107)(Ibid 1980; 14: 511)(Ann Surg 1981; 194: 413). When grafted onto a wound, fibroblasts and blood vessels grow into the artificial dermal matrix. In this template, connective tissue is synthesized in-vivo producing a durable neodermis. A thin split thickness skin graft covering the neodermis completes the skin replacement. The synthetic dermal portion of “artificial skin” is also used as a component of ex-vivo tissue engineered skin.

1990 - Fortunato Benaim, MD (1919…)
Buenos Aires, Argentina

Dr. Benaim, a charismatic gentleman, influenced by caring for victims of a house fire in the neighborhood of the Cosme Argerich Hospital, Buenos Aries, where at the time he was in training in general surgery, furnished the stimulus for a career long devotion to solving all aspects of the burn problem. He is credited with providing the leadership for the development of organized burn care in the Spanish and Portuguese speaking worlds.

He created the first burn unit in Argentina in the Cosme Argerich Hospital (1948). As the Director of the Institute for Burns, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery in Buenos Aires (1956), he established a teaching program in Burn Pathology and Burn Treatment that included all members of the burn team. This effort provided the personnel for regionalization of burn care in Argentina with the subsequent establishment of twenty burn units dispersed throughout the country. Soon thereafter Dr. Benaim fostered an annual National Burn Prevention campaign. In 1964, he expanded his efforts beyond Argentina by creating the Ibero-Latin American Committee for Burn Prevention and Care of Burns. In the early 1980’s through his leadership a Foundation was organized for funding of burn research, prevention and rehabilitation. As a part of this effort, he founded Revista Argentina de Quemaduras (Argentine Burn’s Journal) the world’s first Spanish language journal devoted to the burn problem.

He was also a founding member of the Argentine society of Plastic Surgery, the Argentine Burn Association, the Latin American Federation of Plastic Surgery, the Latin American Federation of Burn Associations and the International Society for Burn Injuries. For this monumental effort, Dr. Benaim received several high honors in his native Argentina plus the Bernado O¨ Huggin’s Order from the Chilean Government (1968), the Gold Badget from Spain (1968) and the Whitaker International Burns Prize (1985).

1986 - Ian Alan Holder, PhD (1934…)
Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

Dr. Holder received this recognition for his work in the microbiology of burn infection, and specifically for his research in Pseudomonas immunotherapy. In the 1950’s and 60’s, with increasing and wide spread use of antibiotics for the treatment of infection, Pseudomonas aeruginosa developed broad troublesome resistance to these drugs and emerged as a great infectious threat, especially to those with burns. As the Director of Microbiology at the Shriners Hospital for Children, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, 1967-2002, and working at the basic science level with the goal of developing clinically applicable immunological approaches to the prevention and treatment of P. aeruginosa infection, a difficult challenge, Dr. Holder first developed a burned mouse-Pseudomonas infection model. Using this model he then systematically explored Pseudomonas cellular and virulence associated factors for antigens to develop immunotherapeutic agents against Pseudomonas infections. While no anti-Pseudomonal vaccine has been widely used in clinical practice, its applicability remains open and is being pursued in such areas as reducing P. Aeruginosa infections in patients with cystic fibrosis. Dr. Holder published a review of the status of the work in this field (Pseudomonas immunotherapy: a historical review. Vaccine 2004; 22: 831-9).