Trauma is the leading cause of death in people under age 45 but getting the best treatment in the first “golden” hour after a vehicle accident, fall or assault can make all the difference. After his car crash last spring, even New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine has to agree. He owes his life to the RWJMS “Dr. Trauma” team at Cooper University Hospital. UMDNJ leads the state in regionalized trauma care and treats more than half of all critical admissions statewide.

In truth, the list of essential components for this world-class network to perform effectively would require an entire book. The building blocks stretch from north to south and everywhere in between. In the north, University Hospital in Newark has an Emergency Medical Service that ranks among the busiest nationwide with more than 125,000 calls for help each year. In the south, there are specialists like RWJMS faculty/physicians Steven Ross, MD, professor of surgery, and Michael Goldberg, MD, professor of anesthesiology, who were among those waiting in Camden on April 12th for the arrival of New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine by helicopter. Within one hour and 20 minutes, Corzine was in surgery in the skilled hands of orthopaedic surgeon Robert Ostrum, MD, RWJMS professor of surgery, and other members of the surgical team. Ross believes that trauma response is like being on a sports team where you practice six days a week to do something well on the seventh. “Every person is important,” Goldberg adds. At Cooper, egos are so unimportant that working teams go by a single name: “Dr. Trauma.”

Improving critical care is a big goal for UMDNJ’s trauma teams. At University Hospital in Newark, for example, Anne C. Mosenthal, MD, associate professor of surgery at NJMS and chief of surgical critical care at UH, and Patricia Murphy, RN, PhD, advanced practice nurse for ethics and bereavement at UH, have developed one of the first programs in palliative care in trauma in the country.