An ER Surgeon who has gone beyond the scalpel to curb violence

Thunderwolf, MSN, RN · Mar 29, 2009

I have to say, I am very impressed with this man...taking that extra step.

Again, you can throw tons of pills at the patient or perform tons of surgeries to patch a patient up, but if you don't begin to address the major problems which bring the patient to you...then what are you truly doing as a physician? This physician seems to have the answer...or at least, the most correct one.

It is an approach that folks in mental health have known for a long time.

Dr. Cooper essentially validates this for us.

Dr. Carnell Cooper, a Baltimore surgeon, is saving lives inside and outside the operating room. art.heroes.cooper.cnn.jpg Dr. Carnell Cooper's Violence Intervention Program provides training and support to trauma victims.

Since becoming a trauma surgeon 16 years ago, he has dedicated himself to treating the many young African-American men who've been shot, stabbed or beaten, only to see them return to the ER with another severe injury just months later.

But when one of his patients was readmitted with a fatal gunshot wound to the head in 1996, it changed Cooper's life.

"The night that we pronounced that young man dead and my colleagues said there's really nothing we can do in these situations. ... I just didn't believe that," said Cooper, 54. "From that day forward, I said, 'Let's see what we can do.' "

Cooper created the Violence Intervention Program (VIP) at the Shock Trauma Unit of the University of Maryland Medical Center, the state's busiest hospital for violent injuries. It became one of the country's first hospital-based anti-violence programs.

"We approached this problem like any public health crisis, like heart disease or smoking," he said. "We tried to work on the root causes."

Since 1998, VIP has provided substance abuse counseling, job skills training and other support services to nearly 500 trauma victims.

"Using that scalpel blade to save their life is the first step," Cooper said. "The next step is to try to keep them from coming back."

A 2006 study by Cooper and his colleagues, published in the Journal of Trauma, showed that people in the program were six times less likely to be readmitted with a violent injury and three times less likely to be arrested for a violent crime.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/03/25/cnnheroes.carnell.cooper/index.html