MUSC, Shriners Hospitals for Children announce new affiliation to support state’s only comprehensive pediatric burn center

CHARLESTON, S.C. (Nov. 16, 2022) - The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and Shriners Hospitals for Children (Shriners Children’s) have announced an affiliation to elevate pediatric burn care and research at the MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital. This is a component of the comprehensive South Carolina Burn Center.

As a part of this affiliation, Shriners Children’s announced a $3 million grant to establish the Shriners Children’s Endowed Professorship in Pediatric Burn Care. The funds will be matched by funding from MUSC and support the only pediatric burn care center in the state, which includes a specialized pediatric burn unit Together, the affiliation’s mutual goal is to establish cutting edge research and best in class pediatric burn care delivery.

“This collaboration helps ensure that the children of South Carolina will have continued access to high-quality and comprehensive burn care,” said David J. Cole, M.D., FACS, MUSC president. “It’s a natural maturation of our work to date with Shriners and further, I am incredibly excited to see how this affiliation and resultant research will help synergize the care our top-notch team is already providing to patients and families from all over South Carolina. This is a great example of public and private entities coming together in the best interest of the citizens of our state.”

“As a South Carolina native, I am so pleased that our organizations are helping to make best-in-class pediatric burn care accessible to children and families of this state and beyond,” said Kenneth G. “Kenny” Craven, Imperial Potentate of Shriners International and CEO of Shriners Children’s. “For 100 years, Shriners Children’s has provided hope and healing to children. Through our collaboration with MUSC, we can continue our mission of helping more kids closer to home.”

Rohit Mittal, M.D., has been named the Shriners Children’s Endowed Professorship in Pediatric Burn Care at MUSC. In this role, Mittal will treat pediatric burn patients and augment the team at MUSC in their current efforts to perform innovative research that improve quality of care and life of burned children.

Mittal is a trauma surgeon who is double board-certified in general surgery and surgical critical care. Since 2019, he has served as director of the Burn Reconstruction Program at Grady Memorial Hospital. Grady has one of the nation’s more experienced and respected burn units, as verified by the American Burn Association. Mittal completed his education and training at Emory, and a burn fellowship at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) and Shriners Children’s Texas. Mittal is scheduled to begin his new role at MUSC in November. 

Shriners Children’s, a world leader in burn care, has also committed to helping MUSC obtain American Burn Association (ABA) burn center verification. Three Shriners Children’s locations providing burn care are accredited by the American Burn Association (ABA) and the American College of Surgeons (ACS) as verified pediatric burn centers: Shriners Children’s Boston, Shriners Children’s Northern California and Shriners Children’s Texas. Verified Burn Centers have met the highest standards of care for burn patients, from injury through rehabilitation.                  

“The arrival of Dr. Mittal and the Shriner's collaboration represents an important milestone for the South Carolina Burn Center,” said Steven Kahn, M.D., South Carolina Burn Center director and chief of burn surgery. “It will facilitate growth and development and allow us to provide the highest quality, patient and family centered care even beyond the borders of our state. This collaboration represents a novel paradigm in burn care with the potential to become a model for regional delivery of care around the United States.”

The comprehensive South Carolina Burn Center, based in Charleston at MUSC, was established by the South Carolina legislature in 2019 through a proviso which enabled funding for adult burn care in addition to the pediatric burn services already in place. Prior to this initiative, complex burn care had not been available in South Carolina since 1997.

The center has an expert team of multidisciplinary burn providers and performs an important public health service for the state in providing care to patients of all ages. Since its recent opening in 2020, the center has been lauded as the first burn center in the United States to perform a minimally invasive skin graft, a National Institutes of Health burn telemedicine K Award, and for having the nation's top ranking in survival four out of the past six quarters.

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MUSC Contact: Heather Woolwine

843-792-7669 / woolwinh@musc.edu 

Shriners Contact: Mel Bower

813-281-8643/ MBower@shrinenet.org 

About Shriners Hospitals for Children

Shriners Hospitals for Children is changing lives every day through innovative pediatric specialty care, world-class research and outstanding medical education. Our health care system provides care for children with orthopaedic conditions, burns, spinal cord injuries, and cleft lip and palate. All care and services are provided regardless of the families’ ability to pay. Since opening its first location in 1922, the health care system has treated more than 1.4 million children. To learn more, please visit shrinershospitalsforchildren.org.

About the MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital

The MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital (SJCH) consists of 250 beds and opened in February 2020 as a replacement facility for the MUSC Children’s Hospital built in the late 1980s and formerly located on Ashley Avenue. More than 200 care team members, MUSC leaders, administrators and family and patient representatives were instrumental in the concept, design and building of this facility. By providing the most advanced pediatric care possible in more than 26 specialty areas, in person or through a robust telehealth network, SJCH includes a Level 1 trauma center and Emergency Department, the state’s only pediatric burn center and solid-organ and bone marrow transplant programs, the state’s largest Level 4 neonatal intensive care unit, an advanced maternal fetal medicine center and a top-5 ranked U.S. News & World Report children’s cardiology & cardiac surgery program, which functions through a nationally unique statewide collaboration of pediatric heart surgeons and cardiologists.