Joey Wahler (Host): It's the only full service burn center verified by the American Burn Association within 400 miles of Memphis. So we're discussing the Firefighters Burn Center at Regional One Health. Our guest, Dr. Travis Webb. He's a Trauma Surgeon and the center's Medical Director. This is One-On-One with Regional One Health, your inside look at how we're building healthier tomorrows for our patients and our community. Join us as we get to know some of the individuals who help provide lifesaving, life-changing care for our community. Thanks for being with us. I am Joey Wahler. Hi, Dr. Webb. Welcome.

Travis Webb, MD, MPHE, FACS: Well, good afternoon. Thank you.

Host: Thanks for hopping on. So first, can you tell us a little bit about your background in terms of what first peaked your interest to pursue a career in medicine?

Travis Webb, MD, MPHE, FACS: Well that's going back several years. So, I grew up in a small town in Southern Illinois. And, my first encounters really with medicine were with a family practitioner. And, he was the old fashioned family practice doctor who took care of myself and my family, and truly had a heart of gold and really just took me under his wing over the years. I progressed well in school and thought that medicine might be something that would be of interest to me. My father was actually a farmer, but also a science teacher. And so I kind of had that science background and as I progressed along and entered college, started pre-med classes and spent some time back with that family practitioner seeing patients. And then luckily he introduced me to a surgeon in the town and, became enthralled with that. Saw my first operation when I was a junior in college. And it was really a love affair from there, to follow the path of medicine and surgery. So then, after graduating from college, I ended up going to Southern Illinois University Medical School.

And then followed that up with residency and at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

Host: And so it sounds like that doctor you referred to really became your chief mentor. Yes?

Travis Webb, MD, MPHE, FACS: He really did. He was somebody that I wanted to emulate, from kind of an early age, I would say. He was, as I said, was just such a kind hearted gentleman, very intelligent, but had such a, an empathy and a good rapport with patients. It was really wonderful to be able to see people with him as I shadowed him at a young age and really get to know what it meant to be a doctor and how that really impacted people's lives. And, then in turn, how it made me feel.

Host: And having a mentor that's that influential early on in your career, it can make all the difference, right?

Travis Webb, MD, MPHE, FACS: Absolutely. And I discovered. Really, it didn't dawn on me until late in residency, but having mentors who really can have that type of impact on you, really, lead you down paths that you never thought you would end up going. And, a lot of times, I think at a young age you have ideas of what you might want to do, but you really have no clue of what that really is until you encounter it.

And so then having mentors around, role models around that really take you under their wing and show you what it means to do something, it has a huge impact on young learners and especially young doctors and healthcare providers.

Host: Yeah, no question. Everyone should be so fortunate to have that type of person in their life. And then how about your journey to becoming Medical Director at the Firefighters Burn Center?

Travis Webb, MD, MPHE, FACS: Well, I spent the vast majority of my career thus far up in Milwaukee at the Medical College of Wisconsin. And I did my general surgery residency there and did a critical care fellowship there and was hired on as faculty and I began an academic career, focusing on managing and caring for the critically ill patients primarily from trauma, but also, call myself an acute care surgeon, because I do trauma surgery, I do surgical critical care, emergency general surgery. And, then burn falls under the purview of injury and surgical critical care and so as I transitioned my career down to Memphis, just a couple years ago, I began spending time in the burn ICU, taking care of some of the worst cases of burn injury.

And, really just fell in love with the people and I would call burn injury is a disease process, and it was something that really piqued my interest. And, I felt that it was a direction that I really wanted to focus on, in the coming years.

Host: So because of the fact that Regional One Health's Burn Center is, as we mentioned, at the top, the only one verified within hundreds of miles, what would you say that means for the patients you and yours treat and for the services you offer?

Travis Webb, MD, MPHE, FACS: Well, it's almost a luxury, if you will, to have this level of burn care, close by in the Memphis area. So, many complex medical problems, really benefit from regionalization of care. And so, as you know, we are the only level one trauma center in the region. And, by being the only verified burn center, what this really denotes is the fact that we are putting a great deal of expertise, time, resources, and passion into the care of patients who have been injured by burns. And for those people who are suffering from burn injuries, to be able to come to a center that provides the full gamut of care, whether it's a severe burn, with large areas of the body that are burned or even just a smaller burn; when you are coming here, you know that you're getting the best care, at the highest level. And I think that that is a great resource to the local community. But as, you note, we're the only one providing this level of care for really a 400 mile radius. And so providing that care for this region, is extremely important.

Host: And since burns can be such serious and often unique injuries, what would you say is your team's approach to delivering the care necessary to get them the best treatment possible?

Travis Webb, MD, MPHE, FACS: Well, I think it's treating every patient as an individual. And assuring that we are evaluating each patient very closely and identifying all of the problems that they may be coming in with. And this involves, you know, injuries from burns are as you said, unique in that they are acute, they are usually visual. So you can see these areas of burns. They cause significant physical harm, but also significant emotional harm in many cases. So we want to try to look at every patient that's coming in, identify their medical problems, identify perhaps, psychologically, where they are, and treat them with the full gamut of care, as I said, to assure that we can get them through this acute time period during which they were not expecting, and, allow them to recover from their injuries and provide them with the rehab and resources necessary to get back to a fulfilling life.

Host: And speaking of which, you lead me beautifully into my next question. Once a burned victim gets through the immediate woods, so to speak, how would you say you and your team help return them to hopefully those same activities as before they were burned or as close to it as possible?

Travis Webb, MD, MPHE, FACS: Well, it starts on day one, on admission. We start thinking about how severe the injuries are, what level of care they're going to require, whether it's just medical care and aggressive wound care, or whether it's going to be complex surgeries that they require.

We identify whether they're going to be in the ICU or whether this can be adequately managed in just a regular floor bed type of situation. But we're also thinking about functionality and rehab and where they're going to go once they leave the hospital. And, this is at the forefront of every patient that's coming in, we start thinking, how are we going to get them back to a full lifestyle that they would like. And, we enlist the services of our social workers and that provides rehabilitation, our rehab specialists, which are really just topnotch individuals and a topnotch team to all of our patients.

Host: And one thing Doctor, it strikes me that makes burn treatment so different than practically any other area of medicine, I would imagine, is the patience, the time that's involved oftentimes when it is a serious injury or injury, sometimes the only thing that's going to really fully heal or come close to fully healing some of these accidents is the passage of time. Am I right?

Travis Webb, MD, MPHE, FACS: You are correct. And one of the key things that I try to impart on the patients very early on, you know, once they've kind of gotten over the immediacy of the injuries and they're starting just in the early phases of starting to recognize the severity, is that this is going to take time and we can do surgeries and we can do wound care.

The biggest challenge for most of our patients is just as you're saying, is to have patience and this day of living, most patients want things done immediately and they want to see results immediately, but, burn injuries and injuries overall, in particular, they take time to heal.

 Sometimes it's takes weeks and months and even years to see full healing potential. And, a lot of people get frustrated with that. And so addressing that early on with patients so that they can understand the whole process is a very important component to helping them deal with these types of injuries, as they occur.

Host: Indeed. You have to learn to let the body's magic do its thing, right?

Travis Webb, MD, MPHE, FACS: Absolutely.

Host: A couple of other questions for you. Education and outreach are an important part of your mission as well. What are some of the best ways to prevent burn injuries, Doctor, generally speaking. And is there one type of burn injury from your years of experience that you would say most often causes severe damage when it easily could have been avoided. What's the biggest mistake we're making out there?

Travis Webb, MD, MPHE, FACS: So in my book, all injuries can be prevented, right? So, we try to look at burns as being preventable. And, the best way to manage burns is to prevent them from ever beginning. We see burns from all sorts of different types of events. Most commonly, flame burns.

So people getting too close to fires or starting brush fires with gasoline and seeing people that are just getting a little bit reckless with how they are dealing with fire. I think, you know, most of our burn patients are in their thirties or in late thirties or so.

And, you may know at that age, we kind of feel like we can do anything and we forget that fire is actually a pretty dangerous thing. And so, just keeping that at the forefront when you're starting a fire for whatever reason, whether it's recreational or whether it's to actually be doing some work around your farm or land or something.

You have to treat it with respect because, it's not going to respect you. The other thing that people really need to keep in mind and, though we don't take care of pediatric patients here, we do see elderly individuals and we see many young individuals who are burned with water, just scald burns.

So most burn injuries occur at home. The vast majority occur at home, and as I said, they can be prevented. So turning down that water temperature in your house can prevent many of the burns that we see. Making sure that the temperature is, you know, less than 120 coming out of that faucet, can keep an elderly individual or perhaps somebody with diabetes who cannot feel as well, from ending up with significant scald burns, just from hot water in the kitchen or in the bathroom.

So most of the injuries that we're seeing, just with a little bit more respect to the potential for burn injury, can be prevented. And so I just ask everybody to think about it and, before you throw the match on that log and think about what you put on that log and, make sure that you're far enough back and, and just use some basic safety ideas rather than getting a little bit too cavalier.

Host: Great advice indeed, for sure. And in summary here, Doc, what's the most rewarding part of this great work done by you and your team would you say?

Travis Webb, MD, MPHE, FACS: Well, of course the most rewarding part is seeing patients through the process. Seeing them when they come into our burn emergency room, seeing how injured they are. Going through the phases sometimes of despair even, with our patients and then seeing them on the other side and having patients come back once they are out of the hospital and maybe coming back to do some rehab or maybe just stopping in to say hello.

Getting that gratification that you've helped somebody along the way, it just means the world to all of us, all of the burn care team, seeing and helping our patients work through these injuries.

Host: Well folks, we trust you are now more familiar with the Firefighters Burn Center at Regional One Health. Dr. Travis Webb reminding us to respect fire because it won't respect us. Doc, keep up all your great work and thanks so much again.

Travis Webb, MD, MPHE, FACS: Thank you so much.

Host: And for more information, please visit Regionalonehealth.org/firefighters-burn-center. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social media. I'm Joey Wahler, and thanks again for making One-On-One with Regional One Health, part of your journey to better health. Join us next time as we introduce you to another member of the Regional One Health Family.