When local resident and GFWC Brentwood Women’s Club volunteer Phyllis Streiff was raising funds for the future Vanderbilt Burn Center, on behalf of her good friend and plastic surgeon J.B. Lynch, MD, she told prospective donors what “we hadn’t had and what we could have if we would take care of it and support it.”
“And thank God a lot of them supported it,” she said. “We, as a city, were in dire need of this type of hospital. There are so many things that enter in with burn patients that the average patient doesn’t experience. They must be handled differently; they can’t roll over without help. Infection runs rampant with burns. Everything is one step more. It’s an art; it really is.”
Streiff recalled a tragedy that occurred in Waverly, Tennessee, on Feb. 24, 1978 — a railroad tank car containing 30,161 gallons of gasoline exploded following a train derailment two days earlier, resulting in 16 deaths and 43 people injured to various degrees. The patients were urgently sent to local hospitals and later transported to burn centers in Louisville, Kentucky; Birmingham, Alabama; and Cincinnati.
Vanderbilt, which did not have a burn center at the time, accepted multiple patients under the direction of Lynch, who was chief of Plastic Surgery and had a strong burn background. He had served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War before completing his residency at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
The surgical intensive care unit (SICU) in Medical Center North (MCN) was transformed into a temporary burn unit.
Lynch had met Streiff while treating her brother, Cliff Black, who was badly burned in a fire during a send-off party before he was to enter the military.
“I had never thought about a burn in my life until my brother. And that’s unfortunate but, when it happens, it is ‘Oh my gosh, where is the burn center? Where do you go?’” The average doctor can’t handle that,” Streiff said.
“Now my brother lives in Danville, Kentucky, and you have to look for his scar tissue. I thought, ‘What would have happened if not for Dr. Lynch?’ I can’t say enough nice things about him. With that train mishap we had a lot of attention, and the need was noticed that we needed to have something for burn patients.”
Streiff and Nashville Fire Department Chaplain James Lassiter would soon form a team to raise money to open a burn unit at Vanderbilt.
Decorating the burn unit for Christmas
The fundraising efforts were successful, and the burn unit opened in November 1983 with Lynch as its first director. Originally located in the SICU on the fifth floor of MCN, it was moved to 11 South of Vanderbilt University Hospital in 2005.
Streiff has come every year since it opened to decorate the burn unit for Christmas, originally with the Brentwood Women’s Club and currently with the Music City Leaders and her partner, Joe Diaz.
She doesn’t put up the Christmas decorations in her home until the Vanderbilt Burn Center has been decorated.
“My interest has never waned, and that comes first for me. I don’t put my tree up until I know that tree is up,” she said. “I always put their tree up first.”
“I have been coming back to decorate for Christmas for 41 years because I saw the appreciation of the people who were there. It has been very positive for me; it has been rewarding, and people will sit around and watch you, and you try to get them to participate. It shows an interest in sick people. They are desperate and many of those people have lost their homes, everything,” she said.
Verification from the American Burn Association
The quote that current Vanderbilt Burn Center Director and Associate Professor of Surgery Anne Wagner, MD, found the most appropriate regarding Lynch’s decision many years ago to open a burn center is from leadership management blogger Michael Dooley —
“Disaster gave me two things: a moment to react and a decision to overcome.”
During its long and storied history, Vanderbilt has truly been a lifesaver for all burn patients as Tennessee’s only dedicated burn center serving both adults and children.
The 25-bed Level 1 burn unit now averages over 600 admissions a year, and the adjacent burn clinic sees 3,000 outpatient visits a year. The center is staffed by physicians, nurses, therapists, psychiatrists and a chaplain. In 2024 there were 567 adult patients and 74 children admitted to the burn unit.
Wagner recently learned that the American Burn Association’s (ABA) Burn Center Verification Review Committee verified the Vanderbilt Burn Center for the first time in its 41-year history, following a monthslong review process after a site visit Feb. 10-11.
The committee’s approval for Verification as an Adult Burn Center is good through March 31, 2028.
“We commend your burn center for its commitment to excellence and its dedication to providing quality burn care to patients,” wrote ABA Verification Review Committee Chair J. Kevin Bailey and ABA Chief Executive Officer Edwin Dellert. “Congratulations on this terrific achievement.”
The verification was received with no deficiencies listed in the report. Verified Burn Centers meet the highest standards of care for the burn injured patient, according to the ABA website. The verification provides a true mark of distinction for a burn center as an indicator to government, third-party payers, patients, families and accreditation organizations that the center provides high-quality patient care to burn patients from the time of injury through rehabilitation.
“I am extremely proud of our team that helped make this possible — it takes a village to run a burn unit and to become a verified burn center — it might have taken us 41 years, but we did it right and have shown we take great care of our patients,” Wagner said.
“We are now the oldest, largest verified burn center in Tennessee and the only burn center that takes care of children in the state,” she said.
