Prolonged Field Care Podcast Prolonged Field Care Podcast 247: Plasma for Burns
Sep 15, 2025
Jennifer Gurney, an Army trauma and burn surgeon who leads the Joint Trauma System, discusses the return to plasma for burn resuscitation. She covers plasma’s physiological and anti-inflammatory benefits. They talk timing and dosing of early plasma, why crystalloid overuse harms patients, and practical prolonged-field burn care tips like monitoring, warming, and minimizing crystalloid.
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Plasma Was The Original Burn Resuscitation
- Burn resuscitation historically used plasma and shifted to crystalloid due to pooled-plasma infection risks in the past.
- Jennifer Gurney links WWII and Coconut Grove Fire experience to early plasma use and later abandonment after hepatitis outbreaks.
Burn Shock Is Primarily A Plasma Deficit
- Burn shock behaves like a plasma deficit rather than pure fluid loss, so replacing plasma addresses the underlying problem.
- Gurney observed massively edematous burn patients from crystalloid-driven interstitial overload at US Army burn centers.
Burn Center Memory Of Crystalloid Overload
- Gurney recounts training at the US Army Institute of Surgical Research Burn Center and seeing patients who looked like trauma victims from 2002–2003 due to massive edema.
- She attributes that appearance to crystalloid over-resuscitation converting wounds deeper.