PHYSICIAN SPOTLIGHT: Anjay Khandelwal, MD on Arkansas Medical News Inc.

PHYSICIAN SPOTLIGHT: Anjay Khandelwal, MD

By: BECKY GILLETTE

Anjay Khandelwal, MD, 36, medical director at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH) Burn Center, has completed fellowships in both burn care and critical care.

“To be trained in both burns and critical care is somewhat unique,” said Khandelwal, who followed a general surgery residency at Temple University/Memorial Medical Center in Johnston, Pa., with a year fellowship in Seattle, Wash., at the University of Washington, Harborview Medical Center – one of the best known burn centers in the country. Then in 2008-2009 he did a surgical critical care fellowship at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Chapel Hill.

Born in Pennsylvania to parents who had emigrated from India, Khandelwal attended medical school in India. There he did a one-year internship at a rural hospital where he worked with a lot of burn patients in a rural burn unit.

“When I came back to the U.S., it seemed often times burn patients are kind of ignored,” Khandelwal said. “Not a lot of people want to go into the field. It was an opportunity to be a big fish in a small pond. We take care of both adults and kids here. We are the only burn center in Arkansas, and on occasion take patients from Tennessee, Texas and Oklahoma.”

The ACH Burn Center takes a strong, multi-disciplinary team approach to burn care.

“It is a wonderful opportunity to be a member of that team,” Khandelwal said. “Without my team, we really wouldn’t be able to provide the care we do. It is the team approach that makes us so successful.”

Khandelwal is the quintessential team leader of the Burn Center, said Elizabeth Ann Kirk, MSN, APN, Clinical Nurse Specialist at the ACH Burn Center.

“He is appreciative and respectful of each team member’s role in caring for the burn patient,” Kirk said. “Dr. Khandelwal trained in several of the largest burn care programs in the country and brings vision and leadership to our burn center. He wants to see the burn center steadily progress and grow to a national leader in burn care.”

Kirk said Khandelwal is one of the most patient and tireless surgeons she has ever worked with.

“He has assumed a new, challenging role with patience, calmness, and kindness,” she said. “Also, he loves to teach and explore new techniques that will improve burn care. Dr. Khandelwal presents himself and the plan of care to patients with confidence and professionalism. The patients and families have an assertion that even in the most difficult of crisis situations such as a burn injury they have the most caring and capable staff to care for them.”

Khandelwal’s favorite patients to work with are kids. Despite the difficulty in seeing a child suffer, he appreciates how resilient children are. And he enjoys getting to have a long-term relationship with them, watching them grow up and mature over the years.

“Children heal much faster, and have greater willpower,” he said. “They are a little more willing to exercise even in the worst case scenario where they can’t use their fingers and hands. They are so quick to adapt to using maybe their feet or the other hand to grab stuff and hold on. Adults take longer to figure that out. In kids, it comes naturally to them. They recover much quicker. I get to see that transformation from the time they have been burned to a couple years later. It is so nice to see that.”

Khandelwal first became interested in medicine when he was only a child himself. He decided in the second grade to become a doctor, and in the seventh grade specifically remembers wanting to go into a surgical field.

“I was fascinated by the concept of surgery,” Khandelwal said.

There have been a lot of advances in burn treatment in recent years. One of the biggest things happened in the early 1980s when surgeons began removing third degree burns early as opposed to later. There is also greater knowledge of critical care management of patients, the needs for skin grafting, and skin substitutes\artificial skins.

“And recently we have been able to use lasers for scar revisions and scar management,” Khandelwal said. “Children’s is the first pediatric hospital in the U.S. to have the Lumenis UltraPulse Fractional Laser available. We are one of only a handful of burn units using it across the country.”

There have also been improvements in pain control. Many dressings they use now stay in place 7 to 14 days. Before, people with burns were given whirlpool therapy where they were scrubbed every day—which has largely been eliminated.

“We put dressings on and patients now have little pain,” Khandelwal said. “We remove the dressing in 14 days and a lot of times it may be healed underneath. That has been very advantageous. We are one of the only burn centers in the country to have dedicated anesthesiologists that help with sedating patients during wound care. We are trying to make wound care as pleasant an experience as possible. We are fortunate to have our own anesthesiology team taking care of that.”

There have also been improved results from increased understanding of grafting techniques and other types of reconstructive surgery.

In addition to burns, the clinic also provides treatment for both adults and children in the following areas: electrical, chemical, inhalational injuries, necrotizing soft tissue infections, traumatic soft tissue injuries, complex wounds including pressure ulcers, skin-sloughing disorders (Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis and Steven-Johnson Syndrome) and scar management and reconstruction for burn and non-burn.

Khandelwal, who spent most of his childhood in Orlando, Fla., got married in September of 2010 to a fellow physician, Cathy, who is currently finishing up her surgical residency at UNC Chapel Hill. They have had a long-distance marriage until this month, when his wife will join him in Little Rock.

“We are looking forward to living in the same town,” he said.

He enjoys living in Arkansas.

“I think in a former life I must have been a Southerner because I enjoy the climate,” Khandelwal said. “I enjoy the warmth. One of my favorite things is sweet ice tea. I am a huge fan of sweet ice tea.”

Although he admits that work is his life, he also enjoys travel, the performing arts and fine arts. He likes to draw and paint.

For more information about ACH Burn Center, see the website www.archildrens.org/burncenter.