The Differences between Level I Trauma Centers vs. Level II Trauma Centers

[UsAll]

Originally Posted by Spazkat9696

Can I ask what you expect to happen in your home that would require a level 1 trama center? I mean what if you're driving on the other side of town and get in a car accident?

A neighbor or intruder (home invader) could shoot me in the head at home or attack me with a large double-edged knife.

I could be using a large butcher knife at home to cut meat and I slip and take off or nearly off some of my fingers or hand or severely slash into one of my wrists.

I could be working underneth my car in my garage and the car collapses on top of me.

I could fall and tumble round and round down a long flight of stairs in an apartment building and bang my head severely multiple times on the way down.

A wild dog on the loose (or a group of wild dogs ... or a group of coyotes, who are known to come into suburbs and even cities at times) could attack me while walking around or near my home and tear me up.

I can be working on the roof of my home and slip off the roof, falling and crashing head-first on the pavement of the street or porch below.

and a mutitiude of other possible scenarios.


You or anyone else can use your own imagination to come up with a host of other possible scenarios (even drawing upon real-life examples of others' calamities). In fact, all the examples above are drawn from real-life examples which have happened to others.

[UsAll]

Originally Posted by Texas Ag 93

One other thing with regard to your original question about the difference between a Level I and II, is that Level I's are required (I think) to have some research components, have to do a lot more QA, reporting and compilation of data (about types and mechanisms of trauma) etc. I don't know the specifics, though.

Yes, I already knew about the research component and reporting requirements for Level I Trauma Centers (versus Level II) but didn't mention them because they are not impactful on the real-time outcome of any trauma victim as he or she is brought in to be attended to. They just serve as extraneous details as far as a trauma victim is concerned.

[christina0001]

Originally Posted by UsAll

[b]
So would YOU YOURSELF, as an experienced medical practitioner (if you are, in fact, a medical practitioner of whatever type) or otherwise a person knowledgeable about the workings of the medical system truly be satisfied to be in reasonable proximity to a Level II Trauma Center yet to be at quite a distance from the nearest Level I Trauma Center (e.g., 10-15 miles away, 25 miles away, 40 or 50 miles away)? Would a Level II Trauma Center in the vicinity of where you live and work each day satisfy YOU personally enough (while, at the same time, not having a Level I Trauma Center in your area that can be reasonably walked to or driven to but must instead have you transported to it by helicopter or else a quite long-distance ambulance trip)?

I'm not a medical practitioner; I am a medical social worker, and having worked for several years in healthcare, I feel very confident that when I do die, it's most likely to be completely irrelevant whether or not I'm in close proximity to a level I trauma center. Therefore, while I do greatly appreciate living near good quality healthcare, living near a level I trauma center is pretty low on my priority list.

According to the CDC, heart disease and cancer are far more likely to kill me, so living a healthy lifestyle including being active, eating healthfully, and receiving preventative healthcare, is much more important, in my opinion.
FastStats - Leading Causes of Death

[UsAll]

Originally Posted by christina0001

I'm not a medical practitioner; I am a medical social worker, and having worked for several years in healthcare, I feel very confident that when I do die, it's most likely to be completely irrelevant whether or not I'm in close proximity to a level I trauma center. Therefore, while I do greatly appreciate living near good quality healthcare, living near a level I trauma center is pretty low on my priority list.

According to the CDC, heart disease and cancer are far more likely to kill me, so living a healthy lifestyle including being active, eating healthfully, and receiving preventative healthcare, is much more important, in my opinion.
FastStats - Leading Causes of Death

Yes. True. And I am one who doesn't engage in putting myself in unnecessary danger and making foolish day-to-day life choices. The point is that it is not an 'either-or" decision. It just comes down to a matter of one increasing his or her odds of living longer if, besides living a healthy lifestyle including being active, eating healthfully, and receiving preventative healthcare, you also aim increase the probability o living longer by trying to pre-arrange your life circumstances (in this case, the chosen location of your home or home area) so that you increase the odds of being attended to in the most timely manner in the unexpected case of experiencing traumatic calamity and then being attended to (as fast as can be) by the type of hospital most equipped to handle any possible contingency that may be brought to it (rather than having to have your most needed critical medical intervention delayed by having to have you shuffled from one institution to another.

I don't imagine that Gabby Giffords got up that day in 2011 to make her way to making a political speech at an Arizone shopping center and expecting that a crazed person would come out of nowhere and shoot her through the head:

In 2011, U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and eighteen others were shot during a constituent meeting held in a supermarket parking lot in Casas Adobes, Arizona, in the Tucson metropolitan area. Six people died, including federal District Court Chief Judge John Roll; Gabe Zimmerman, one of Rep. Giffords' staffers; and a nine-year-old girl, Christina-Taylor Green. Giffords was holding the meeting, called "Congress on Your Corner" in the parking lot of a Safeway store when Jared Lee Loughner drew a pistol and shot her in the head before proceeding to fire on other people. One additional person was injured in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. News reports identified the target of the attack as Giffords, a Democrat representing Arizona's 8th congressional district. She was shot through the head at point-blank range, and her medical condition was initially described as "critical".

An uncountable number of other examples of possible unexpected traumatic calamities can be brought up as examples (and even if limiting those examples to your own home or home area rather than in the wider world out there). You can take all the proper preventative lifestyle steps you want, but if and when a serious calamity befalls you, your odds are greatly increased of survival and then recovery (to whatever degree you can be recovered and rehabilitated) if you have the most prompt needed intervention and at a hospital best equipped to handle your needed intervention (rather than being brought to a non-trauma-designated small community hospital or even a Level III or IV or V-designated hospital ... and possibly at a good distance from where you are situated when you incur such a traumatic event). As I stated earlier in the thread, not only do I live at home but I work from home as well and spend most of my time at home or in the home area (unless, of course, making a special trip out of the home area for whatever purpose). So the statistical probabilty is notably greater (rather than lesser) that I would be situated on any given day either in my home or within my immediate home neighborhood rather than not.

[Spazkat9696]

Not to be mean but I'd be more worried about anxiety related/stress conditions if I were the OP.

[SouthernBelleInUtah]

This is not really about the H&W aspects but about where to live. Closed.