Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

University Health System (UHS) – University Hospital, San Antonio, Texas

The leading cause of death for Americans age 44 and younger doesn't have its own institute at the National Institutes of Health, and so a new national advocacy group that grew from San Antonio's three trauma centers is hoping to partly fill the gap.

The National Trauma Institute, which will host a national meeting of military and civilian doctors, nurses and researchers here beginning Monday, hopes to raise $56 million in private donations and $10 million a year in federal funds to support trauma research across the country.

To that end, it is replacing its local 17-member board of directors with a national slate of trauma experts who can identify worthy research projects to fund, and to speak with one voice to Congress. For now, its headquarters remain in San Antonio.

“Our goal really would be to raise money to give it away,” Dr. Ronald Stewart, director of trauma at University Hospital and chairman of the group, told the San Antonio Express-News Editorial Board on Thursday. “To give to the best and brightest projects that could have the biggest impact on reducing the burden of disease of trauma.”

The group pointed to an Institute of Medicine study that found that when calculated by years of life cut short by disease or injury, the federal government spends 10 cents on trauma research for every $1.65 spent on cancer and every $3.51 spent on HIV.

Part of the problem, Stewart said, is that trauma doesn't have a strong group of patient advocates, unlike diseases such as cancer.

“It's just the nature of what we do, and I actually think it's probably good that people don't associate themselves as trauma victims. They think they were hurt and they got better,” Stewart said.

“But that probably does explain if you were to just look at the NIH list of institutes ... gosh, we have an institute for those problems, but we don't have an institute for trauma, which is the leading cause of death in children, which old people die like crazy (from), and is the main reason why our troops are dying in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

The group is unapologetic for drawing attention to wounded soldiers in raising funds for trauma research.

“When people ask us, are you taking advantage of the fact that there's a war, we answer very affirmatively, yes, we are,” said Sharon Smith, executive director of the institute. “Wars bring advances in medical technology, and we need to make something good come out of all of that.”

Originally dubbed the Trauma Institute of San Antonio, Texas, or TRISAT, the consortium included the University of Texas Health Science Center, the Army Institute of Surgical Research and the three Level 1 trauma centers: University Hospital, and Brooke Army and Wilford Hall medical centers.

And although violence and injuries from car crashes, falls and other accidents kill 160,000 Americans a year, it was the intense interest in providing better care to wounded soldiers that prompted the creation of the NTI last year, Stewart said.

“A common question people would ask, whether it was policymakers or citizens, or even families of the wounded, was — what can we do to help?” Stewart said. “The obvious answer was, we could improve funding for trauma research.”

The group currently has about $7 million in funding, including a $3.8 million grant from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund, to develop a wireless monitor for vital signs.

“We don't have the answer to some pretty fundamental questions,” Stewart said. “What kind of fluids should you give? What should you do to replace bleeding? What's the best way to control bleeding? How best to treat the brain-injured patient?”