During area TV newscasts perhaps the most frequently repeated refrain is, “The victim was taken to Vanderbilt.”
Vanderbilt University Hospital (VUH) is home to the region’s only nationally verified Level 1 trauma center by the American College of Surgeons. The Vanderbilt Trauma Center team and colleagues in the adult emergency department work in tandem to triage and treat the region’s most critically injured accident victims.
For 27 years, across nearly 100,000 admissions, the Trauma Center’s physicians, nurses and staff have been treating patients arriving from a region covering 80,000 square miles. Each year, the Center admits more than 5,000 trauma patients from Tennessee and surrounding states, and this requires sustained and effective partnership with referring hospitals, and ever-vigilant prehospital providers like LifeFlight.
On a given day, the Trauma Center may admit multiple gunshot and motor vehicle accident victims. Last year, 390 gunshot victims were treated along with 85 stabbing victims. There were 167 victims of assault. Trauma treated 349 motorcycle accident victims and another 84 who were injured on all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). There were 65 patients that were treated for injuries from riding bicycles.
Traumatic injuries know no bounds. There were 42 patients who were treated at VUMC for injuries from animals, and 10 who were treated for glass-related injuries.
Last year, in all, trauma and burn patients from 22 states, from coast to coast, were treated at Vanderbilt. Most patients arrive by ground ambulance followed by air and are transported by LifeFlight or other air ambulance programs.
A recent example of what the Trauma Center does best is Gary Wagoner of Kuttawa, Kentucky.
Wagoner was flown more than 130 miles from a hospital near his farm to VUH after falling under a tractor that ran over and crushed his pelvis. “The tractor sucked me under and ran over my midsection,” he said. The 64-year-old spent 11 days in Trauma ICU and Stepdown after undergoing surgery for his injuries.
“They did an amazing job. Without the very talented hands of some amazing doctors and nurses, I know that I would not have survived. From the moment those good people began to work on me, I can say that from each and every person there was never anything but positive energy,” he said. “They showed a great deal of kindness to an old cowboy who was hurting pretty bad.”
Since 2014, the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Committee on Trauma has verified VUH and the Vanderbilt Trauma Center with its Level 1 national ranking — the only such center in Middle Tennessee to receive the distinction for the delivery of care to adult trauma patients. In January, VUH was reverified as a national Level 1 adult trauma center by the ACS Committee on Trauma.
To achieve ACS National Certification for a Level 1 trauma center, a hospital must meet a comprehensive set of requirements, including a high volume of trauma cases, 24/7 availability of specialists, robust research and education programs, and access to various other resources.
“Our faculty, fellows, APPs and interdisciplinary partners constantly stand ready to serve our injured citizens across Middle Tennessee, day or night, 365 days a year. We are committed to the highest quality of clinical care, and doing this consistently while innovating to figure how to do this better and ways to even prevent these events,” said Mayur Patel, MD, MPH, Ingram Professor in Surgical Sciences and chief of the Division of Acute Care Surgery.
The most common injuries treated by the Trauma Center are falls.
Last year, more than 2,500 fall victims were treated, with a majority of these being from falls under 3 feet. However, nearly 70 of these patients fell from a height greater than 19 feet.
“In the last couple of years there has been a significant rise in ground-level falls (falls while walking or standing) because the baby boomers are getting older and more of them are on blood thinners,” said Shannon Godby, RN, CCRN, one of the Trauma Center’s longtime nursing leaders. “These injuries have surpassed motor vehicle accidents as the most common type of injury we treat because blood thinners and a blow to the head during a fall will cause a brain bleed.”
Each year, from May through September the number of traumatic injuries spike across the nation during trauma season as more people are out enjoying recreational activities.
“Here in Tennessee, trauma season typically starts in late April and lasts all the way through the summer. In that season we typically see boating accidents and ATV accidents, and motorcycle accidents are very common,” said Trauma Center nurse Kendra Meeks, BSN, RN, CCRN, RN3CC.
Meeks has been working on 10 North Trauma for three years of her 11-year nursing career and has already cared for patients suffering an amazing array of injuries. She said the most devastating injuries she commonly sees are among motor vehicle accident victims along with fall victims who also suffer head injuries.
“The worst injury I’ve seen has been a crush injury, a construction worker who had been pinned by a concrete block formation. He was so sick and unstable he was unable to make it down to the OR so the surgeons would operate on him here in the unit,” she said.
Meeks says working in trauma with patients who suffer such devastating injuries is life changing and affects how she goes about day-to-day living. “I’m more aware as a driver and not as much of a risk taker as I used to be because I see so much of it,” she said. “I definitely encourage my family to wear helmets more often now for activities. I’m just a more cautious individual in general from working here.”
