I am very proud to introduce the new website for the VCU Trauma Center's Injury and Violence Prevention Program.
One of the biggest challenges I faced when I joined the VCU Division of Trauma in 2002 was to redefine the VCU Trauma Center’s role regarding injury and violence prevention, both within the hospital and with the community. In accordance with the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma, I believe that “institutions caring for the injured patients can and should establish and aggressively pursue a leadership role in injury and violence preventions.” I also believe that such leadership must be based on multidisciplinary, collaborative, and evidence-based efforts. Such efforts are critical for our Trauma Center.
LEVEL I TRAUMA CENTER
VCU Medical Center is the only Level I Trauma Center in central Virginia, receiving greater than 80% of all injuries occurring in Richmond. An average of 4,000 patients per year are admitted to VCU Medical Center secondary to gun shot wounds, stabbings, assaults and motor vehicle crashes. Despite the excellent clinical care of our trauma center, many people are unaware that within 5 years between 10- 40% of our victimized patients will be re-injured, and 20% will die. Similarly, many are unaware that more patients between ages 1-34 years are lost to injury and violence compared to all other causes of death combined.
It is clear that our efforts must extend beyond the “treat and street” solution. Urban academic medical centers, like ours, have a unique window of opportunity to engage our injured patients in hospital intervention programs and be an entry point to the various injury and violence reduction programs in the community. I believe that this new paradigm of a hospital-community based injury and violence prevention and intervention program, that is multidisciplinary, collaborative and evidence-based, can serve as a model for the rest of the hospitals in the community and throughout the Commonwealth.
OUR PARTNERS
In the past 3 years, we worked aggressively on developing the VCU Trauma Center’s injury and violence prevention program with dedicated coordinators, project leaders, and collaborators throughout the health system. We also worked hard on forming an extensive and wide range of partners throughout the community and the Commonwealth. Such efforts were only possible and fruitful with strong institutional support. Such support has been tremendous, not only on the part of the various units and staff that directly care for trauma patients, but specifically on the part of key personnel in nursing and hospital administration including Dr. Rao Ivatury, Dr. James Neifeld, Dr. Sheldon Retchin, Mr. John Duval, Ms. Sheryl Garland, Nancy Martin, RN, ACNP, and Nancy New, RN. Additionally, much gratitude goes to Dr. Robin Foster and Dr. Robert Cohen for their invaluable advice, guidance, and collaboration for the development of the program. See a list of our Partners and Sponsors
THE TEAM
This website is to introduce you to the members of our team and ongoing injury and violence prevention projects. We hope it will serve as a resource to connect all persons interested in injury and violence prevention to our team, partners and sponsors as we strive to develop and disseminate injury and violence prevention initiatives that impact our patients and communities.
We invite you to join us in our efforts to reduce and prevent injury and violence through education, research, and combined hospital-community outreach efforts.
— Michel B. Aboutanos, MD, MPH, FACS
— Message from Professor & Chief, Dr. Rao Ivatury