University of Maryland School of Medicine Faculty Member Featured on NBC Nightly News Special Report on Gun Violence in America

UM School of Medicine Professor of Trauma Surgery Dr. Thomas Scalea Featured on National Network News Highlighting State of the Art Care Provided at University of Maryland Medical Center’s R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center

A University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) faculty member was featured in a prestigious national news program over the weekend highlighting the lifesaving critical care medicine practiced at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC). In an extended segment called “One Night in America” that comprised half of the evening newscast for NBC Nightly News and additional coverage on MSNBC, a reporter was embedded at Shock Trauma for more than nine hours from Saturday evening, July 16, into Sunday morning to document emergency trauma cases caused by gun violence. Reporters were also embedded in three other major cities showing different perspectives including police response to shootings and community support from a local street pastor.

The special report aired on Sunday evening and prominently featured Thomas Scalea, MD, The Honorable Francis X. Kelly Distinguished Professor of Trauma Surgery at UMSOM and Physician-in-Chief of the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at UMMC. He also serves as Chief of Critical Care Services for the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS).

 Reflecting on the death of one of his patients, Dr. Scalea said in the segment, that gunshot deaths are an unnecessary injury in a civilized society. “This is one night in one city in the richest country in the world. How can this make any sense?”

For more than 50 years, the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center has been a worldwide leader in trauma care and innovation, training some of the leading trauma physicians in the U.S. and around the globe. SOM physician-scientists have pioneered major advances in trauma care through research. Shock Trauma is the nation's first and only integrated trauma hospital and is considered a national model of excellence with a 96 percent survival rate. It is Maryland's Primary Adult Resource Center (PARC) designated to treat the most severely injured and critically ill patients. The Program in Trauma at UMSOM is the only multidisciplinary dedicated physician group practice that cares for injury in the United States.

Earlier this year, Dr. Scalea celebrated his 25^th anniversary with the Shock Trauma Center. Among his many accomplishments, he cared for tens of thousands of Marylanders critically injured in motor vehicle collisions, falls and violent attacks, traveled to China and Haiti to render assistance to earthquake victims, helped train thousands of U.S. Air Force personnel and worked alongside military physicians in war-torn Afghanistan. He has steered Maryland’s highest-level trauma center through two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Footage from Dr. Scalea’s interviews and patient care in the Shock Trauma Center can be found in the links below. 

NBC Nightly News Videos

Inside a Baltimore Trauma Center as Nation Faces Gun Violence Epidemic

In-Depth Look at Gun Violence Across America

About the University of Maryland School of Medicine

Now in its third century, the University of Maryland School of Medicine was chartered in 1807 as the first public medical school in the United States. It continues today as one of the fastest growing, top-tier biomedical research enterprises in the world -- with 46 academic departments, centers, institutes, and programs, and a faculty of more than 3,000 physicians, scientists, and allied health professionals, including members of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences, and a distinguished two-time winner of the Albert E. Lasker Award in Medical Research.  With an operating budget of more than $1.2 billion, the School of Medicine works closely in partnership with the University of Maryland Medical Center and Medical System to provide research-intensive, academic and clinically based care for nearly 2 million patients each year. The School of Medicine has nearly $600 million in extramural funding, with most of its academic departments highly ranked among all medical schools in the nation in research funding.  As one of the seven professional schools that make up the University of Maryland, Baltimore campus, the School of Medicine has a total population of nearly 9,000 faculty and staff, including 2,500 students, trainees, residents, and fellows. The combined School of Medicine and Medical System (“University of Maryland Medicine”) has an annual budget of over $6 billion and an economic impact of nearly $20 billion on the state and local community. The School of Medicine, which ranks as the 8th highest among public medical schools in research productivity (according to the Association of American Medical Colleges profile) is an innovator in translational medicine, with 606 active patents and 52 start-up companies.  In the latest U.S. News & World Report ranking of the Best Medical Schools, published in 2021, the UM School of Medicine is ranked #9 among the 92 public medical schools in the U.S., and in the top 15 percent (#27) of all 192 public and private U.S. medical schools.  The School of Medicine works locally, nationally, and globally, with research and treatment facilities in 36 countries around the world. Visit medschool.umaryland.edu

About the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center

The R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, University of Maryland was the first fully integrated trauma center in the world and remains at the epicenter for trauma research, patient care and teaching, both nationally and internationally today. Shock Trauma is where the "golden hour" concept of trauma was born and where many lifesaving practices in modern trauma medicine were pioneered. Shock Trauma is also at the heart of the Maryland's unparalleled Emergency Medical Service System. Learn more about Shock Trauma.

About the University of Maryland Medical Center

The University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) is comprised of two hospital campuses in Baltimore: the 800-bed flagship institution of the 13-hospital University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) — and the 200-bed UMMC Midtown Campus, both academic medical centers training physicians and health professionals and pursuing research and innovation to improve health. UMMC's downtown campus is a national and regional referral center for trauma, cancer care, neurosciences, advanced cardiovascular care, women's and children's health, and has one of the largest solid organ transplant programs in the country. All physicians on staff at the downtown campus are clinical faculty physicians of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. The UMMC Midtown Campus medical staff is predominately faculty physicians specializing in diabetes, chronic diseases, behavioral health, long-term acute care and an array of outpatient primary care and specially services. UMMC Midtown has been a teaching hospital for 140 years and is located one mile away from the downtown campus. For more information, visit www.umm.edu.