For immediate release: May 14, 2008
Contact: Mark N. Levine
Senior Director, Health Science Communications
Office 702-671-6455
Mobile 702-818-9842
mlevine@medicine.nevada.edu
School of Medicine receives approval to establish
acute care surgery fellowship
Acute care surgery fellowship is first of its kind in the U.S.
LAS VEGAS, Nev.— The University of Nevada School of Medicine Department of Surgery has received approval to create the country’s first acute care surgery fellowship program.
The training will be completed at University Medical Center (UMC) in Las Vegas which performs 6,500 surgical procedures each year in all surgical specialties and provides care for 4,000 seriously injured patients annually across 10,000-square mile area of the southwestern United States. School of Medicine surgeons staff many of these surgical services.
In making the announcement, the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST) said, “The University of Nevada’s School of Medicine training proposal is well thought out, comprehensive and will prove to be a valuable resource to the Las Vegas community.” The AAST also cited UMC’s exceptional commitment to providing specialty service on-call coverage for trauma, surgery, and numerous other critical specialties, noting “this financial support further documents leadership’s commitment to the institutional mission of providing trauma care for the community.”
Comprising the faculty core for the new program are John Fildes, M.D., professor and vice chair of the School’s Department of Surgery and current national chair of the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma; Jay Coates, M.D., assistant director of the School’s surgical critical care fellowship; Timothy Browder, M.D., assistant director of the acute care surgery fellowship; Deborah Kuhls, M.D., director of trauma ICU, and Michael Casey, M.D., general surgeon.
“The creation of the first acute care surgery fellowship program in the United States helps provide a solution to the problem of patient access to emergency surgical care,” said Fildes. “It has long been recognized the immense and growing need for emergency and critical care surgical coverage. The goal of this fellowship was to redefine the training and practice of trauma surgery to include broad training in elective and emergency general surgery, trauma surgery, and surgical critical care as well as expanded training in surgical specialties like orthopaedics and neurosurgery.” Fildes added, “This will allow the acute care surgeon to assist surgical subspecialties in the initial stabilization, workup, and management of patients with surgical emergencies.”
“We are extremely proud to be able to establish the new Acute Care Surgery training program, the first in the country,” said William A. Zamboni, M.D., chair of the School of Medicine’s Department of Surgery and president of the School’s clinical practice, University Health System in Las Vegas. “This is the result of extremely hard work by Dr. John Fildes and the faculty of the Division of Trauma and Critical Care, which is already internationally recognized for excellence in patient service and research.”
As the state’s only public medical school, the University of Nevada School of Medicine has been a leader in healthcare, medical education and research in Nevada since 1969. The School of Medicine includes 16 clinical departments including family medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, internal medicine, surgery, and psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and five nationally recognized departments in basic science including microbiology and biomedical engineering. The more than 185 doctors of University Health System, the school’s clinical practice, offer care in more than 40 medical specialties and subspecialties with eight physician offices in the Reno/Sparks area and seven in Las Vegas. The school is committed to a best practices approach to medicine and is dedicated to exceptional healthcare for Nevada now and in the future. For more information visit www.medicine.nevada.edu.