The Section of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery is proud to direct the University of Chicago Burn Fellowship Program. This one year fellowship will include all aspects of burn care, including acute surgery, reconstructive surgery, burn critical care and rehabilitation. Opportunities exist for research and the fellow will be expected to attend the annual American Burn Association meeting.
Sebastian Vrouwe, MD
Assistant Professor of Surgery
The Burn fellow will have access to all inpatient and outpatient facilities of the University of Chicago Medicine campus including our American Burn Association and the American College of Surgeons-verified Burn and Complex Wound Center. The Burn Center admits between 350 to 400 patients annually, including both children and adults. This inpatient experience is complimented by an outpatient burn care delivered four days per week in multidisciplinary clinics.
Effective April 2024, the University of Chicago Burn Fellowship program is officially verified by the American Burn Association.
Program Structure:
- Burn Service – 10 months
- Surgical Critical Care Service – 2 months
The Fellowship core curriculum will cover:
- Pre-burn center care
- Resuscitation and cardiovascular physiology
- Inhalation injury and respiratory failure
- Wound management
- Infection
- Nutrition
- Pharmacology
- Psychosocial
- Ethics and palliative care
- Rehabilitation
- Outpatient management
- Basic reconstruction
- Administration and quality improvement
- Pediatric care
The Fellowship didactic experience will include:
- Organizing monthly Quality Improvement (QI) Conferences
- Advanced Burn Life Support (ABLS) training
- Attendance at a national meeting (ABA)
This fellowship is not accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). Fellows who successfully complete the training program will receive a diploma and certificate documenting their advanced training.
Our comprehensive training program is set on an expanding clinical campus that starts right across the street from the main quadrangle of the University of Chicago. Indeed, we are one of the only academic medical centers in the nation that shares a campus with our home institution. Our residents can therefore take advantage of all that the University of Chicago has to offer, from lectures to food trucks to a gym and more.
The University of Chicago Medicine began providing adult trauma care on May 1, 2018; the adult trauma program adds to UChicago Medicine's pediatric trauma and burn services, providing the community with a comprehensive system of care to treat the full range of trauma injuries in patients of all ages.
In November 2019, UChicago Medicine announced that it earned its 16th sequential "A" rating in patient safety from the industry watchdog Leapfrog Group; immediately following, it achieved Magnet Recognition status, the gold standard for nursing excellence and high-quality patient care, from the American Nurses Credentialing Center.
The jewel of our medical center campus is the Center for Care and Discovery (CCD), our main hospital building, which opened in 2013. The CCD is one of the most advanced clinical and surgical centers in the country dedicated to specialty care, including cancer, gastrointestinal disease, neuroscience, advanced surgery and high-tech medical imaging. The new hospital was designed by world-renown architect, Rafael Viñoly, who created the acclaimed Charles M. Harper Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. This innovative hospital contains ten floors and over 1.2 million square feet for clinical activity. The CCD is an exceptional place to be a patient and creates an enhanced health experience that is focused on quality and safety. We believe that this inspiring atmosphere provides our trainees with a modern environment to learn surgery and conduct world-class research at the forefront of medicine. Our residents have access to state-of-the art simulation training at both the University of Chicago Center for Simulation and Safety and the Northshore Center for Simulation and Innovation.
We are currently accepting applications for the 2026 - 2027 Academic Year.
Applications will be accepted through February 1, 2025, and reviewed on a rolling basis.
At a minimum, admitted fellows must have completed three years in a general surgery or plastic surgery residency in good standing, with preference to applicants who have completed a plastic surgery residency. For consideration, complete applications must include a statement of purpose, three letters of recommendation, CV, and indicate a strong interest in a career that involves burn care.
Applicants must be qualified for full licensure in Illinois.
You may submit your application directly to our program coordinator.
Serving a patient population on the South Side of Chicago that is disproportionately affected by structural racism, poverty, and disparities in care, we are determined to recruit fellows and future contributors to the field who understand the sociocultural nature of some of our conditions with which patients present.
Our core faculty attend annual implicit bias training workshops before interview season, adopt fair practices in recruitment and retention, and encourage our fellows engage with our Department’s and Division’s programming and wellness support in the realms of diversity and inclusion. Our DEI Steering Committee hosts a number of events for faculty and trainees throughout the year to promote examination of implicit bias and conversation surrounding structural racism; these efforts include a monthly Cultural Competencies discussion, promotion of events for specific identity groups, and sponsored lectures that bring topics in health justice to our department.