Surgical Specialties

Trauma Surgery

Defined as an injury or set of injuries that require hospitalization, trauma is a leading cause of death in the United States. Caring for trauma patients requires a total resource response, including the provision of timely surgical care.

In the mid-1990s, Central Maine Medical Center developed a Trauma Surgery Service to care for seriously-injured patients. The treatment of major trauma is time-related, requiring systems that focus on rapid evaluation, resuscitation and stabilization of multiple-injured patients. Such trauma systems, like the one created at CMMC, extend from the pre-hospital response in the field to emergency department care to surgery, and finally to the critical care unit.

At CMMC, surgical expertise has been organized into a protocol-based, quick-response system that allows the hospital to provide high-quality, definitive trauma management. Since the program was established, statistical analysis of the treatment outcomes and survival for trauma patients indicates that the quality of trauma care at CMMC is equal to care offered at major metropolitan trauma centers across the country.

Although area surgeons have always treated accident victims, a Trauma Surgery Service created in the mid-1990s has galvanized Central Maine Medical Center's ability to care for seriously-injured patients.

Because CMMC was fortunate to have a number of outstanding surgeons on staff, the development of a Trauma Program hinged primarily on organization and leadership. This task fell to Larry O. Hopperstead, M.D., a former director of CMMC Emergency Department who help found Tri-County Emergency Medical Services in the 1970s. Dr. Hopperstead left CMMC in the early 1980s to pursue training as a surgeon.

Dr. Hopperstead's return to CMMC in 1994 heralded the beginning of the hospital's eventually successful effort to be designated as one of the state's three trauma referral centers.

Defined as an injury or set of injuries that require hospitalization, trauma causes more than 150,000 deaths annually in the United States, and is the leading cause of death among people under the age of 44. Most major trauma is caused by automobile accidents, but industrial accidents, falls, and violence are also major contributors to the problem.

“Trauma is a societal epidemic. The best way to manage this epidemic is to prevent injuries in the first place. When that has failed, the treatment of major trauma is very time-related, and requires the development of systems that focus on rapid evaluation, resuscitation and stabilization of multiple-injured patients. These trauma systems, like the one we've created at CMMC, must extend from the pre-hospital response in the field to emergency department care to surgery, and finally to the critical care unit,” Dr. Hopperstead explains.

Dr. Hopperstead helped organize the hospitals surgical expertise into a protocol-based, quick-response system that allows the organization to provide high-quality, definitive trauma management. Since the program was established, statistical analysis of the treatment outcomes and survival for trauma patients indicates that the quality of trauma care at CMMC is equal to the quality of care offered at major metropolitan trauma centers across the country.

“Trauma care cuts across the entire fabric of capabilities and services of an acute-care hospital. The excellent outcomes achieved by trauma patients at CMMC speaks well of the Medical Center's entire range of capabilities,” Dr. Hopperstead says.