19. When Minutes Matter: Dr. Selwyn Rogers on Ending Chicago’s South Side Trauma Desert and Disrupting Cycles of Violence

Dr. Selwyn Rogers Jr. recounts his journey to establish an adult Level I trauma center at the University of Chicago Medicine, driven by high-profile tragedies, community advocacy, and a vision to treat trauma as a chronic public-health issue rather than a single event.

He describes the center’s launch, the role of hospital systems and community partnerships, hospital-based violence prevention, and the broader social determinants that shape health and life expectancy on Chicago’s South Side.

Further reading: Hope — Beyond Firearm Trauma in NEJM Author: Selwyn O. Rogers, Jr., M.D., M.P.H. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2214971 

Biography 

Selwyn O. Rogers Jr., MD, MPH, FACS, is a widely respected surgeon and public health expert. As founding director of the University of Chicago Medicine Trauma Center, Dr. Rogers is building an interdisciplinary team of specialists to treat patients who suffer injury from life-threatening events, such as car crashes, serious falls and gun violence. His team works with leaders in the city's trauma network to expand trauma care on the South Side.

Dr. Rogers has served in leadership capacities at health centers across the country, including most recently as vice president and chief medical officer for the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. Dr. Rogers has also served as the chair of surgery at Temple University School of Medicine and as the division chief of trauma, burns and surgical critical care at Harvard Medical School. While at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), he helped launch the Center for Surgery and Public Health to understand the nature, quality and utilization of surgical care nationally and internationally. Additionally, as executive vice president for community health engagement, Dr. Rogers works with faculty across the University of Chicago as well as members of the community to develop a multidisciplinary approach to trauma care and health disparities. His work will help enhance the understanding of social factors that affect victims of violence and underserved populations, in addition to identifying approaches necessary to achieving better outcomes for trauma victims.

Dr. Rogers' clinical and research interests focus on understanding the healthcare needs of underserved populations. He has published numerous articles relating to health disparities and the impact of race and ethnicity on surgical outcomes.

Transcript

My name is Dr. Selwyn Rogers, Jr. I serve as a founding director of the Adult Trauma Center at the University of Chicago Medicine.

As with any talk or speech to any audience, it's both important for the speaker to know the audience, but it's very helpful for the audience to know the speaker.

For those in podcast land, you can't see me, so let me give you a few descriptors of what you'd be seeing if I was in a room with you. You'll be seeing a 6'4 black male who is cisgender, happily married, father of three African-American sons, a birthright citizen of the United States of America, who has a son who's gay, and a sister who's transgender. Those are descriptors of categories, of definitions of who Selwyn Rogers is, but they're only small descriptors. At a cocktail party, if I was to introduce myself, I would say I'm a trauma surgeon, which is what I do.

I was compelled to join the University of Chicago Medicine eight years ago, leaving a very cozy life as a chief medical officer in Galveston, Texas, where I served as the chief medical officer with a beach house and a very comfortable living. And I was asked to consider standing up an adult level one trauma center on the south side of Chicago at the University of Chicago. Now, many people have been to the city of Chicago as I have been, but I actually had never stopped to think about the fact that there was no adult level one trauma center on the south side of Chicago. It had actually never crossed my mind. And so when I was first being wooed, invited. Recruited, I thought long and hard, and my kids are very wise, they said, Dad, do you want to work that hard? You seem pretty comfortable right now. And as I reflected on the question and their point of view, it came to me that at the age of 50, which is what I was eight years ago, I had done several things that were, if you will, significant. But at that point in my life, I was very eager to do something of significance. And that's what brought me to the University of Chicago Medicine, to stand up in adult Leavenworth Trauma Center.

Now, the story of an adult trauma center, I'm going to share with you. A allegory around one of the greatest improvisational jazz artists of all time, the great Miles Davis. And Miles was a bad dude, and bad in a good way, if you will, as the kids would say. And they probably would say something else, like he was a bad, I'm not gonna say that, mothe