[ms6852]

Level 1 trauma care basically means that specialized care for that certain individual can be provided due to the resources available at that hospital. The resources could be a neurosurgeon, a cardio thoracic surgeon or some other specialized trained medical team. For example in my hospital when we had a patient with severe life threatening burns, the patients brought in would bypass the ER and go directly to the burn unit where the burn unit team was ready to receive the patient and provide care.

General surgeon can provide great care and immediate life saving care but if the more specialized care like listed above is needed their knowledge and expertise is limited and the facility or hospital may not have the specialized resources needed for long term specialized care. This is the difference between a major level one hospital and the others.

I worked at a level one Trauma Center and provided support at the emergency room at Brooke Army Medical Center for many years. When ever we received a trauma patient that needed specialty care the general surgeon would request that the appropriate doctors with their specialized skills and training be called, if not everything was handled by them. The emergency room all it does is stabilize the patient further until proper immediate and long term care for their specific needs are met. The EMT guys do a fantastic job of stabilizing the patients enough to get them to the ER. The real heroes are the EMT guys in my opinion.