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, in 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 outcomes. 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.”