Skip to main content

Highlights From the Trauma Workshop: Firearm Injury, Reboa, and More

On Friday May 5th, UC San Diego’s Division of Trauma, Surgical Critical Care, Burns & Acute Care Surgery, and the American College of Surgeons San Diego – Imperial Chapter, hosted the San Diego Trauma Workshop, a multi-professional continuing education event.

Attended by over 125 healthcare professionals from across Southern California, the event included a presentation by Deborah A. Kuhls, MD, FACS, FCCM , director of the trauma intensive care unit at the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, Las Vegas . Kuhls described how the Las Vegas Trauma System responded to the mass shooting event of October 1, 2017, along with lessons learned. Notably, she emphasized the importance of thinking beyond mass casualty events, to firearm-related injuries and deaths more broadly, which represent a significant public health problem in the United States. More people die from firearm-related injury than from motor vehicle accidents each year, and firearm-related death accounts for 17 percent of the overall burden of injury, translating to an average of 32,529 firearm deaths per year since 2010. Kuhls urged more funding for research related to firearm injury, and noted the consensus  among the ACS Board of Governors and Committee on Trauma on this matter. View Kuhls presentation

The workshop also featured a presentation by Dr. Joseph Galante , Associate Professor of Surgery and Trauma Medical Director at UC Davis Health on “REBOA and the Golden Hour.” Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Occlusion of the Aorta (REBOA) is a new technique in which a balloon is inserted into the aorta to prevent a trauma patient bleeding to death. His presentation highlighted the results of national and international studies to date, and the safest way to use the REBOA technique while avoiding complications. View Galante’s presentation 

Educational sessions included:

  • Airway Management in Trauma & Critical Care
  • Death, Dignity and ICU – Palliative Care in the ICU
  • The Multidisciplinary Approach to Pediatric Trauma
  • Global Surgery and Trauma: Ghana and Beyond
  • Special Panel: Difficult Wounds: Burn, Trauma and Surgical Infections
  • Management of severe pelvic injury

The workshop evaluations indicated that the audience particularly enjoyed the palliative care in the ICU presentation by Dr. Sara Edwards.

Learn More about CME Opportunities  at UC San Diego