Start Your Fellowship Here
The Iowa Healthcare Burn Fellowship is committed to developing exceptional burn surgeons through comprehensive, multidisciplinary training in the care of adult and pediatric patients with burn injuries, complex wounds, and reconstructive needs. Our mission is to cultivate clinical excellence, innovation, leadership, and compassion while preparing fellows to become future leaders in burn surgery, education, research, and advocacy. Through a patient-centered approach and exposure to a broad spectrum of burn care, fellows gain the skills, experience, and mentorship necessary to advance the field and improve outcomes for burn survivors.
Program Aims
1. Recruit and Develop Outstanding Future Leaders
Attract and train highly motivated surgeons who demonstrate a commitment to excellence in burn care, scholarship, and service. Foster an inclusive learning environment that supports professional growth, mentorship, wellness, and leadership development, preparing fellows for successful careers in academic and community burn practice.
2. Deliver a Unique, Comprehensive Burn Training Experience
Provide immersive, multidisciplinary training across the continuum of burn care, including acute resuscitation, critical care, operative management, reconstruction, rehabilitation, outpatient care, and research. Leverage the strengths of University of Iowa Health Care's collaborative culture, high-acuity patient population, and integrated adult and pediatric burn care experience to create a fellowship experience that is both rigorous and distinctive.
3. Prepare Fellows to Advance the Field and Improve Patient Outcomes
Equip fellows with the clinical expertise, research skills, and systems-based knowledge necessary to improve burn prevention, treatment, recovery, and quality of life for patients. Graduates will be prepared to lead multidisciplinary teams, contribute to innovation and scholarship, and serve as advocates for burn patients and survivors at local, regional, and national levels.
Fellowship Structure
The fellow will have clinical duties exclusively caring for patients on the Burn Surgery Service or patients on the Plastic Surgery Service for whom the burn fellow has provided surgical intervention. Under the supervision of the faculty member(s), the fellow will be responsible for guiding the junior residents in all aspects of burn care.
Burn care lectures to the residents, medical students, and other staff members are encouraged. Many of our past fellows have combined the one-year burn fellowship with an additional one-year surgical critical care fellowship.
Volume of Surgery
The Burn Service performs approximately 375 operations each year at Iowa Health Care. The staff assists on all operations. Each fellow can expect to perform over 200 major procedures during their fellowship. Although the preponderance of surgical cases involves acute burn surgery, complex wound care and burn reconstruction procedures are also part of the surgical cases. Procedures such as escharotomies, bronchoscopies, and conscious sedation are all performed in the Burn Treatment Center on a regular basis.
Organization of the Burn Surgery Service
The Burn Surgery Service at the University of Iowa Health Care consists of three faculty members, one burn fellow, one second year resident and one intern. The call coverage is from home and is primarily back up.
The fellow will round daily with the resident team providing close supervision, and will round with the charge nurse and rehab when available. Weekend rounds will be limited to weekends when the R1 is rounding. Nighttime/weekend call responsibilities include backing up the R1 when they are on call.
The Physician Assistant on the service ultimately works directly with the faculty; however, their input should be included in patient care. The residents and fellow have no supervisory role over the Physician Assistant.
Resident Educational Program and Teaching Conferences
Multidisciplinary educational lectures are held weekly, providing instruction on burn resuscitation, inhalation injuries, electrical and chemical burns, necrotizing acute soft tissue infections, and wound care.
Morbidity and Mortality conference is held weekly within the Department of Surgery. The Division of Acute Care Surgery holds a monthly Morbidity and Mortality conference where Burn Surgery Service cases are discussed.
Journal Club is presented once a month as is the Research Conference.
The burn surgery fellow is allowed one national meeting per year that is financially supported by the Burn Treatment Center. Additional meeting time if the fellow is making a scientific presentation is negotiable.
Burn Treatment Center
A newly renovated Iowa Health Care Burn Treatment Center is enhancing the Department of Surgery's ability to provide specialized care for patients across Iowa and the Midwest while advancing its missions of patient care, education and research.
The recent renovation project which was completed in June 2026 expands the Burn Treatment Center from 17 to 21 beds, increasing capacity for one of the region's busiest and most comprehensive burn care programs. As Iowa's only American Burn Association-verified burn center for both adult and pediatric patients, the unit serves patients from throughout the state as well as neighboring states.
The fellow will round daily with the resident team providing close supervision, participate in Multidisciplinary rounds as well as discharge planning.
The Advanced Practice Providers on the burn service ultimately work directly with the faculty members; however, their input should be included in patient care. The residents and fellow have no supervisory role over the Physician Assistant or Nurse Practitioners.
Research Facilities
The fellow is encouraged to participate in research projects throughout the year by participating on projects currently underway or by creating new projects. The faculty on the Burn Surgery Service are continually conducting clinical research.