Hill at UAMS to See Trauma Care Operations
| Aug. 2, 2016 | As U.S. Rep. French Hill walked into the UAMS Medical Center’s Emergency Department, a trauma patient arrived on a gurney after transport there by helicopter.
Secured to the gurney and bandaged, the patient was wheeled into an examination room.
On a tour of the UAMS Medical Center’s Emergency Department,U.S. Rep. French Hill, left, is accompanied by Roxane Townsend, M.D., second from left, the department’s medical director Randy Maddox, M.D., and Rawle Seupaul, M.D.
Hill was there to witness firsthand the operation of the state’s only Level 1 trauma center and talk to the physicians and nurses who staff it. Just a few minutes into Hill’s visit, that same trauma patient was being moved from the examination room to undergo a CT scan.
Accompanying Hill on his visit were UAMS Chancellor Dan Rahn, M.D.; Roxanne Townsend, M.D., CEO of the medical center; UAMS College of Medicine Dean Pope Moseley, M.D.; and Rawle Seupaul, M.D., chairman of the College of Medicine’s Department of Emergency Medicine.
Seupaul showed Hill one of three resuscitation rooms, pointing out a large, digital timer clock on the wall that lets clinicians in the ER know precisely how long it has been since a patient arrived for treatment.
He and Rahn spoke to Hill about the necessity of maintaining 24-hour coverage every day of the year for specialties like neurosurgery in order to maintain the medical center’s Level 1 trauma status.
Continuing the tour, Seupaul showed the congressman one of four bedside ultrasound machines the department uses in treating patients. Seupaul said being able to use the technology there helps determine whether a CT scan or other medical imaging is truly needed or not. That helps reduce treatment time and costs.
Hill talks with several UAMS researchers about their work and about National Institutes of Health funding for medical research.
Once the tour was concluded, Hill met with physician residents and nursing staff. With Seupaul, he also discussed his legislative work in Congress on psychiatric care and the problem of capacity in psychiatric facilities. The shortage of space and resources for patients in need of psychiatric care means they stay in the Emergency Departments longer, Seupaul said.
Hill’s final stop included a meeting with several UAMS researchers to hear about their work in an array of fields from bioinformatics to drug abuse prevention.
Lawrence Cornett, Ph. D., UAMS vice chancellor for research, and Moseley both spoke about the vital importance of NIH funding for medical research at UAMS.
Cornett introduced Hill to several researchers who began their careers through the Institutional Development Award (IDeA) program, an initiative of the National Institute for General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) meant to broaden funding from the National Institutes of Health for biomedical and behavioral research in 25 states.