Dell Seton expands burns it treats, so more can avoid long trips for care

If you were badly burned, would you have to go to San Antonio or Dallas?

Before August, if more than 10 percent of your body was covered in burns, you would.

Dell Seton Medical Center at the University of Texas has launched a new burn program. The program can treat people with burns of up to 30 percent of their bodies. It also can treat burns that involve the face, hands feet, joints and genitalia. Previously those patients would have been sent to Dallas or San Antonio.

The center treats anyone age 15 and older. Younger patients go to Dell Children’s Medical Center and then to San Antonio or Dallas if needed.

Expanding the burn program meant expanding Dell Seton’s surgical intensive care unit and its plastic surgery program.

“We felt like we could responsibly expand our burn services now that our medical offerings have matured throughout the last five to 10 years,” Dr. Ben Coopwood said in a news release. He is the head of the program as well as the trauma team at Dell Seton.

If you have a blistering burn larger than your hand or a burn that causes your skin to feel like leather, you should go to an emergency room, Coopwood said.

Dell Seton’s burn unit at 1500 Red River St. can perform initial treatment on patients with burns that cover more than 30 percent of their bodies. Those patients then will be transferred to San Antonio and Dallas hospitals with programs that can handle that scale of burn.