Clinical Synopsis

Faculty of the division of trauma/surgical critical care are based at Grady Memorial Hospital, a facility in downtown Atlanta predominately staffed by Emory physicians and residents in collaboration with the Morehouse School of Medicine. Grady has a daily census of 725-750 patients, 953 beds, and 16 ORs (including a cystoscopy room). Being one of the largest public hospitals in the Southeast and the largest hospital in Georgia, Grady had 27,571 total patient admissions in 2008. Faculty of the division of trauma/surgical critical care staff the Trauma Center, Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU), and Burn Unit.

Having a catchment population of over 5,000,000 people, the Trauma Center, a state Center of Excellence, is the only Level I trauma facility in northwest Georgia. Of the thousands of injured patients evaluated in 2008 at the center, 2471 were sent to the OR, 35 percent with penetrating injuries. Approximately 70 patients per month are admitted to the SICU, with division faculty performing such bedside procedures as bronchoscopy, EGD, feeding tube placement, fasciotomy, tracheostomy, and open abdomen dressing changes. One of only two such services in the state of Georgia and the only one that cares for children as well as adults, Grady's Burn Unit admits over 450 burn patients each year and performed 307 surgical procedures in 2008.

Research Synopsis

Division faculty are currently developing research databases on injured pregnant patients, blunt ruptured aorta, pelvic fractures and associated complications, and lower GI bleeding.
Specific projects also include the use of ultrasound in trauma settings, modes of ventilatory support, management of complex wound complications, outcomes of treatment for traumatic brain injury, and the pathophysiology of early trauma induced coagulopathy.