The Burn and Plastic Surgery Association of CPLA in thirty years

The founding and the development of the Burn and Plastic Surgery Association of the People′s Liberation Army of China (CPLA) were reviewed. It was in 1962 that the Burn Surgery Association of CPLA was founded on the basis of the Burn Collaboration Group of the Army and it was enlarged to become the Burn and Plastic Surgery Association in 1978. Its members consist of the Burn Units of the four Military Medical Universities, all the major hospitals of the Army, Navy and Air Force, and other military medical services. At present an extensive network for academic communications on burn and plastic surgery has been established within the Army. The association has so far sponsored 14 academic conferences, which in fact were nation-wide gatherings since the participants included most of the colleagues and experts of the field no matter they were civilians or in uniform. In recent years, the research on basic sciences related to burn and plastic surgery is very active and has achieved quite remarkable results.In addition, our communications with the colleagues overseas have also been established and several international conferences on the speciality have consecutively been held by the association.