R Adams Cowley

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R Adams Cowley
Cowley in 1977
Born	(1917-07-25)July 25, 1917
Died	October 27, 1991(1991-10-27) (aged 74)
Medical career
Profession	Surgeon

R Adams Cowley (July 25, 1917 – October 27, 1991) was an American surgeon considered a pioneer in emergency medicine and the treatment of shock trauma.^[1] Called the "Father of Trauma Medicine",^[2] he was the founder of the United States' first trauma center at the University of Maryland in 1958, after the United States Army awarded him $100,000 to study shock in people—the first award of its kind in the United States. The trauma unit at first consisted of two beds, and was later expanded to four beds. Many people called the four-bed unit the "death lab."^[3] Cowley was the creator of the "Golden Hour" concept, the period of 60 minutes or less following injury when immediate definitive care is crucial to a trauma patient's survival.^[4] He was a leader in the use of helicopters for medical evacuations of civilians, beginning in 1969,^[3] and founded the Society of Thoracic Surgeons.^[5] He also founded the nation's first statewide EMS system, called MIEMSS by Executive Order of Maryland's Governor Mandel, 1972, as well as the National Study Center for Trauma and EMS, enacted by Congress in 1986 and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. He is also known for being one of the first surgeons to perform open-heart surgery and invented both a surgical clamp that bears his name and the prototype pacemaker that was used by Dwight D. Eisenhower.^[2]

As a professor of thoracic surgery at the University of Maryland, Cowley was the organizer of the world's first and longest-running "shock trauma" center. After years of research that he conducted in the late 1950s, it was officially opened at the University of Maryland Hospital in 1959. The center was renamed in May 1989^[6] The R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center of the University of Maryland Hospital. In 1957, while still in the U.S. Army, Cowley had pioneered the once controversial but now universally accepted concept of the "Golden Hour," which he defined as the fact that a severe trauma patient had sixty minutes or less from time of injury to receive specialized treatment at a Shock Trauma Unit to reduce mortality. The controversial aspect was that for countless years, injured patients had been taken, by ambulance, to the nearest hospital to die. To accomplish his goal, Cowley delegated, and shared responsibility for, trauma medicine with such hospitals throughout the state of Maryland as the Johns Hopkins Hospital's Pediatric Trauma Center, the Curtis Hand Center of Union Memorial Hospital, and the state burn center at Bay View Hospital. Cowley also organized the Maryland Institute of Emergency Medical Services, the first statewide coordinated EMS system of care in The United States. In 1969, he started the first injured "civilian" helicopter transport service with the assistance of the Maryland State Police Aviation Division.^[7] With over 400 published professional articles, chapters, books, and white papers to his credit, Cowley was a pioneer in raising awareness of trauma prevention. Notably, Cowley took on Dr. David Boyd in his residency, and mentored him. Boyd went on to further develop the Trauma system with his successes in the Illinois Trauma Center.^[8] In 1986, at Cowley's request and with the support of Maryland Senator Mathias, Ronald Reagan, the then President of the United States, signed the act authorizing the establishment of "The National Center For The Study of Trauma and Emergency Medical Services" and recognizing, as its founder and first director, R Adams Cowley. This center, still in operation as of early April 2015, is located at the University of Maryland.^[2] The University of Utah, which honored Cowley as one of Utah's most famous legends, requested and received the collection of his personal and professional papers.

• Congressional Certificate of Merit, Congress of the United States of America, March 19, 1980.^[9]
• World War II Victory Medal.
• World War II Army Occupation Medal.^[10]
• Appreciation for services rendered from the FBI, United States Department of Justice, December 1983.^[11]
• House Bill, June 11, 2013, to award a Congressional Gold Medal to R Adams Cowley in recognition of lifelong commitment to the advancement of trauma care. Sponsored by Dutch Ruppersberger and all Maryland Congressional members.^[12]
• Senate Bill, June 11, 2013, to award Congressional Gold Medal to R Adams Cowley in recognition of lifelong commitment to the advancement of trauma care. Sponsored by Senator Barbara Mikulski and Senator Cardin.^[13]

• Professor of Thoracic & Cardiovascular Surgery, University of Maryland, School of Medicine
• Clinical Professor of Medicine, Pennsylvania State University
• Founder/First Director, Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems
• Director, Charles McC. Mathias Jr., National Study Center for Trauma & Emergency Medicine. Approved by US Senate and House and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan.^[14]

• National Highway Safety Advisory Committee (Presidential appointee)
• National Coalition for EMS (chairman)
• White House Conference on Emergency Medical Services
• Society of Thoracic Surgeons (founding member)
• American Trauma Society (founding member and past president)
• Atlantic EMS Council (founding member and past president)
• Maryland State Highway Safety Coordinating Committee
• Governors Commission of Fire Services
• National Research Council: Committees on Shock, Hyperbaric Oxygenation and blood components

• More than 400 medical journal articles.
• Textbooks: Trauma Care: Surgical Management; Trauma Care: Medical Management; Shock Trauma/Critical Care Handbook; Terrorism, Mass Casualties, Crisis: A Lessons Learned Approach; Emergency Management at an Airport Catastrophe; Shock Trauma/Critical Care Manual; Initial Assessment and Management; Pathophysiology of Shock, Anoxia and Ischemia; and collected papers in Emergency Medical Services and Traumatology.
• Editorial boards: Disaster Medicine; Journal of World Association for Emergency & Disaster Medicine; American Journal of Emergency Medicine; Emergency Department News.

• "Accidental Death and Disability: The Neglected Disease of Modern Society." (He was a member of the committee of the National Research Council that wrote the landmark document.)
• "The Need for a National Trauma Institute: Conquering Our Most Expensive Health Problem."
• "An Evaluation of the Utilization of Human Blood Resources in the United States."

Papers and memorabilia collected by the University of Utah.

Before he obtained his M.D. degree, Cowley studied in and graduated from the Layton Public Schools of Layton, Utah and Davis County High School in Kaysville, Utah; in 1940, Cowley graduated eighth in his class at the University of Utah.^[15] He attended medical school at the University of Maryland, from which he graduated in 1944.^[16] Cowley completed a fellowship at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In the late 1940s, while serving in the U.S. Army, he received extensive surgical training in Europe.

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^[17]

He was born in Layton, Utah, on July 25, 1917. Cowley was the son of pharmacist William Wallace Cowley, his family's first college-educated member, who was the founder of Kowley Drugs, a drugstore on Main Street in Layton. Cowley's mother, Alta Louise Adams, was a self-taught painter and mother of five boys. Cowley was from the country, where he enjoyed riding horses and farming.

Cowley quit medical school at the University of Maryland because of homesickness for family and country life. Upon hearing this, the medical school dean raced to the bus station, found young Cowley, and offered to let him live in his home if Cowley returned to his studies.

Cowley was married to Roberta Cowley, a speech–language pathologist from the University of Virginia. Cowley had a son, R Adams Cowley II, who was born three weeks prior to his own death, and a daughter, Kay Cowley Pace, a teacher, from a prior marriage. Cowley's son R Adams Cowley II, an Eagle Scout, graduated from the Gilman School in Baltimore, Maryland, Vanderbilt University; Georgetown University, MS, Georgetown School of Medicine, 2020.

An amateur oil painter, Cowley donated one of his finest paintings, Winterscape, during the first Shock Trauma Gala.

Spencer Adams, Cowley's uncle, played professional baseball with the New York Yankees.

Cowley was passionate about classical music, his favorite composer being Mozart.

Though he could have afforded a large house from his earnings as a doctor, Cowley lived in an efficient apartment covered with books, some of which he even kept inside its stove.

Cowley worked sixteen-hour days, seven days a week, to bring his vision of creating trauma medicine to fruition; sometimes he even slept on hospital x-ray tables. One Christmas, University of Maryland carpenters presented Cowley with an eight-foot orange handmade bench so he would stop that practice.

Cowley joked that he missed seven sabbaticals. He refused to take vacations for almost fifty years so that his staff could be home with their families on holidays.

After Cowley's death, his personal and professional papers, awards, and memorabilia were requested by and donated to the University of Utah Marriott Library, where he was named one of "Utah's Heroes."^[2] He was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.^[1]

Cowley died suddenly at home on October 27, 1991. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

One of Cowley's grandfathers, Utah State Senator Rufus Adams, had yearned for years for a namesake grandson named Rufus. One of Senator Adams's daughters, Alta Louise, half-heartedly agreed. However, at the birth of Cowley, though his mother started to write "Rufus," she stopped after writing "R [with no period] Adams Cowley." Cowley's official first name became simply "R," and he insisted that it be written without a period after it.^[18]

Cowley is the subject of the 1982 television film Shocktrauma, in which he is portrayed by William Conrad.^[2] This made for Public Broadcast Service TV was sponsored by General Foods.^[19]

• Trauma center

• Media related to R Adams Cowley at Wikimedia Commons