The Transformative Impact of the University of Chicago Level 1 Trauma Center Opening on Student and Trainee Experiences

On May 1st, 2018, the University of Chicago opened a level-1 trauma center (UCMTC), ending a decades-long hiatus in trauma care access on Chicago’s South Side. While a growing body of literature suggests that the UCMTC opening served to improve outcomes and care access for trauma patients injured on the South Side, the center’s broader role in changing the dynamics of healthcare provision at the University of Chicago are yet to be formally documented. An important consequence of the structural changes wrought by the UCMTC opening has been a tangible shift in the attitudes, experiences of, and opportunities available to trainees and students affiliated with the University of Chicago Medical Center. In this chapter, we explore this transition. Specifically, we describe how the UCMTC opening has punctuated a transition in the University of Chicago Medical Center’s identity to putting community-responsive care at the forefront of the institutional mission. This has contributed to the emergence of a new generation of students and trainees with the skills and experience to serve as leaders in community-based healthcare. In addition, the UCMTC opening buoyed case volume, heightened exposure to managing patients with medically complex pathology, and re-centered the importance of providing trauma-informed care for medical trainees, thereby improving the quality of training available at the University. This revamping of training quality has made the University of Chicago a national Mecca for medical education, thus improving trainee recruitment and spurring the formation of cross-institutional partnerships. As a case study, the UCMTC opening underscores how opening level-1 trauma centers at academic medical institutions can exert wide-reaching effects beyond improving patient care, most notably by comprehensively improving student experiences and trainee education.