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 In 1988, in accordance with groundbreaking 1985 Oregon legislation, the State Health Division appointed Oregon Health & Science University as one of the state’s two Level I trauma centers. This designation requires the OHSU Trauma Service to provide expert care to the most seriously injured patients in the state, instruct future generations of trauma surgeons, and conduct research into improving and advancing the treatment of trauma patients.
Along with their extremely capable colleagues in Emergency Medicine, Radiology, Neurosurgery, Orthopedics, and Plastic Surgery, OHSU’s trauma surgeons treat nearly 2500 trauma patients each year; many of them seriously injured, and hundreds of them transferred from the state’s Level II, III, and IV trauma centers via Life Flight helicopter or ground ambulance. As a result, several studies conducted by the Rural Trauma Study Group–led by Dr. Richard Mullins and funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention–have found that the odds of death for injured Oregonians have declined significantly, especially among brain-injured patients.
Oregon Health & Science University is also an academic center dedicated to the education of future health care professionals, and the Trauma Service proudly follows in this tradition of teaching. Every six weeks, two residents from the General Surgery service are appointed specifically to the Trauma Service where they learn the techniques of trauma surgery, present complex cases at Trauma Conference every week, and continue to treat discharged patients in the Trauma Clinic. The Trauma Service also sponsors two Critical Care Fellows each year who conduct research, act as a consultant to various services, and even spend some time in out-of-state programs to discover different perspectives concerning the care of trauma patients. These fellows have consistently become leaders in other centers. The Trauma Service staff works closely with each student, resident, and fellow in order to ensure a solid understanding of the principles of trauma care in future surgeons.
The OHSU Trauma Service also focuses on research activities intended to improve the care of trauma patients not just at OHSU but around the world. OHSU trauma researchers are leaders in resuscitation, hemorrhage control, gender, rib fracture and outcomes research. They have received support from the NIH, CDC, DoD, private industry and local sources to perform this research. The surgeons of the Trauma Service seek to enlighten themselves and their colleagues about the best ways to care for injured patients.
For the last 2 decades, the OHSU Trauma Service has served Oregon as a center of excellence for the care of seriously injured patients, a university committed to teaching future trauma surgeons, and an institute concerned with discovering and evaluating techniques of trauma patient care. The Trauma Service continues to serve as an exemplary Level I trauma center and is determined to carry out this role for decades to come.
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