Innovative Approaches to Trauma Care

The University of Minnesota (UMN) Innovative Approaches to Trauma Care Program will provide dual mentorship-based training to surgery residents, critical care fellows, and emergency medicine fellows in a broad variety of topic areas that relate to trauma and critical care. Trauma is the number one cause of death for people under the age of 46, and deaths are more likely to occur in less severely injured patients in rural settings compared to their urban counterparts. Major gaps and pressing questions in the area of optimal trauma care include 1) evaluating the effect of prehospital care interventions on patient-centered outcomes; 2) optimizing trauma/critically ill patient monitoring (e.g., wearable sensors, AI-assisted early warning systems, and prehospital telemedicine); 3) advancing innovative, patient-centric clinical trials targeting the leading causes of death and disability post-injury; and 4) developing novel solutions to improve rural trauma care. Physician scientists are uniquely positioned to create and lead interdisciplinary teams due to their broad network of health professionals and non-physician scientists. However, physician scientists are becoming exceedingly rare, with only 1.5% of active physicians currently funded by the NIH1. Our program will provide a research focused curriculum, access to high-quality mentors and collaborators, and provision of protected time, all critical to launching early career physician scientists. Curriculum: Our two-year program will consist of four tracks including 1) Clinical Trial Innovation, 2) Rural Trauma Care, 3) Trauma and Critical Care Outcomes, and 4) Translational Preclinical Research. The trainee project topic areas will broadly include trauma care, including: early resuscitation, wound infection and prevention, hemorrhagic shock, and prehospital interventions after severe injury. By the end of the fellowship, trainees will also receive a relevant Master's degree. Co-Directors, Mentors, and Collaborators: The Co-Directors of this program are physician scientists in Surgery and Emergency Medicine and leaders of the Translational Center for Resuscitative Trauma Care, a Center at the University of Minnesota Medical School that improves trauma care through the creation of technologies and knowledge products deployable by first responders and hospital-based healthcare workers. Mentorship within our program also features nationally and internationally recognized mentors in Acute Care Surgery, Emergency Medicine, Prehospital Emergency Care, Critical Care, and Biostatistics. Moreover, we have unique training opportunities related to rural trauma care (University of Minnesota-Duluth and Minnesota Department of Health), established linkage of prehospital data to outcomes for rapid hypothesis development and testing (eso and UMN-led database), and innovative emergency care clinical trial design development and leadership (SIREN network and UMN School of Public Health). We have strong collaborations with four Minnesota Level 1 trauma Centers with a combined total of more than 15,000 trauma admissions/year with active clinical trial activity that can be leveraged by our trainees. Project Number: 1T32GM156740-01A1 | Fiscal Year: 2026 | NIH Institute/Center: National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) | Principal Investigator: Michael Puskarich (+1 co-PI) | Institution: UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, MINNEAPOLIS, MN | Award Amount: $103,795 | Activity Code: T32 | Study Section: Special Emphasis Panel[ZRG1 MGG-S (80)] View on NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11263224