Cook County Hospital's Trauma Unit provides all facets of trauma care to patients in Cook County, regardless of their ability to pay.

The trauma unit at Cook County Hospital is one of the largest trauma units in the United States. It was also one of the first comprehensive trauma units. In 1966, Dr. Robert Freeark and Dr. Robert Baker conceived of a comprehensive trauma unit. This unit would provide a continuum of care for all seriously injured trauma patients beginning in the prehospital and resuscitation phases, through operative and postoperative or postinjury care and continuing on to the outpatient and rehabilitation settings. All phases of care are represented among our medical staff. The patient is cared for by the same team of physicians from their initial encounter in the resuscitation area throughout their hospital stay. Continuing this theme of comprehensive care, the same trauma nursing team works in both the resuscitation area and the Trauma Intensive Care Unit.

The original Cook County Trauma Unit was located in a renovated physician's dining room on the third floor of the hospital. In June of 1994, Trauma relocated to a new location on the first floor opposite the Emergency Department. The Trauma Resuscitation area is, however, completely separate from the Emergency Department. We have 10 resuscitation beds as well as a shock room. Most X-rays are done in our unit with the exception of CT scanning and angiography. All seriously injured trauma patients are brought directly to our Resuscitation area. Last year we admitted almost 5000 patients, including pediatric trauma and burn patients.

The Trauma Intensive Care Unit is a 16-bed unit contiguous to the resuscitation area. The same team of physicians and nurses cares for patients in both areas. We admit over 600 patients per year to our Intensive Care Unit.

The Burn Unit has a nine-bed intensive care unit and 12 convalescent beds. Almost 400 patients were admitted last year with thermal, chemical and electrical burns as well as diseases such as toxic epidermal necrolysis.

The Department of Trauma has a staff of six full-time attending surgeons, two full-time emergency physicians, one full-time burn attending, one rehabilitation attending, one clinical trauma fellow, one nurse epidemiologist, one trauma resources coordinator and one nurse researcher. Faculty members of the program are widely published. A surveillance team consisting of four abstractors and one data entry person carries out trauma registry functions. Academically, we are a section of the Department of General Surgery at Rush University. The department offers a one-year clinical fellowship, and trains residents from a number of programs in the area.