Search Results - Cowley, R. Adams

R Adams Cowley

R Adams Cowley (July 25, 1917 – October 27, 1991) was an American surgeon who is considered a pioneer in emergency medicine and the treatment of life-threatening shock following severe traumatic injury. Called the "Father of Trauma Medicine", he was the founder of the United States' first trauma center at the University of Maryland in 1958, after the United States Army awarded him $100,000 to study the effects of shock in wounded soldiers—the first award of its kind in the United States. The trauma unit initially consisted of two beds, and was later expanded to four beds. Many people called the four-bed unit the "death lab."

Cowley coined the concept of the "Golden Hour" in trauma medicine: the period of 60 minutes or less following traumatic injury when immediate definitive care is crucial to a trauma patient's survival. He was among the first physicians in the US to use helicopters for medical evacuations of civilians, beginning in 1969, and he founded the Society of Thoracic Surgeons.

He also founded the nation's first statewide EMS system, the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems (MIEMSS) by Executive Order of Maryland's then Governor Mandel in 1972, as well as the National Study Center for Trauma and EMS, enacted by Congress in 1986 and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan.

He is also known for being one of the first surgeons to perform open-heart surgery and invented both a surgical clamp that bears his name and the prototype pacemaker that was used by Dwight D. Eisenhower. Provided by Wikipedia