Experts available: UChicago Medicine's Trauma Center Marks Five Years

Five years ago this month, University of Chicago Medicine opened a Level 1 adult trauma center — filling a decades-long void on the city’s South Side. Since then, the center has treated more than 18,000 people, saved countless lives and become a national leader in violence reduction and community partnership.

TRAUMA CENTER AFTER FIVE YEARS

Selwyn Rogers is the founding director of the UChicago Medicine Trauma Center. In 2021, he testified in front of Congress about treating gun violence as a public health issue and this year wrote about the emotional toll violence takes on victims, doctors and families in an opinion piece for the New England Journal of Medicine.

TEACHING FIRST RESPONSE

Emergency medicine physician Abdullah Pratt founded MedCEEP, a program that offers first-response training to at-risk youth on the South and West Sides, with the aim of offering skills, resiliency and an introduction to health related careers. He’s spoken about the impact of gun violence on children and can discuss MedCEEP in greater detail.

VIOLENCE PREVENTION

Franklin Cosey-Gay is the director of UChicago Medicine’s Violence Recovery Program. He’s spoken out against those who use violence as a political wedge issue and argued that such inflammatory rhetoric is counterproductive to the goals of "community-based and trauma-informed approaches to curbing gun violence.” 

VIOLENCE RECOVERY PROGRAM

Recently named an Obama Scholar, Christine Goggins is the lead violence recovery specialist at UChicago Medicine’s Violence Recovery Program. Goggins can discuss the impact of the program, which provides crisis intervention, psychological first aid, social support, and connection to community-based social services.

CRITICAL TRAUMA RESEARCH

Tanya Zakrison is both a trauma surgeon and the director of critical trauma research at UChicago Medicine. She’s advocated for the passage of a statewide assault weapons ban in Illinois, and discussed the emotional toll of trauma. Zakrison can discuss Recovery Legal Care, a partnership between UChicago Medicine and Legal Aid Chicago.

CHILDREN AND TRAUMA

Co-Director of Healing Hurt People Chicago, Bradley Stolbach is an expert in pediatric trauma. He can discuss his research, which focuses on developmental trauma disorder in children, links between poverty and trauma, and the role of developmental trauma in the lives of children and youth affiliated with armed groups.

PARTNERSHIP WITH AMCT3

Kenneth Wilson is the UChicago Medicine trauma center medical director and a military surgeon in the U.S. Army Reserves. His research focuses on military trauma and trauma surgical outcomes. He can discuss UChicago Medicine’s partnership with the U.S. Army Medicine Department Military-Civilian Trauma Team Training program (AMCT3).