International Trauma Life Support for Emergency Care Providers

About our authors Roy L. Alson, PhD, MD, FACEP, FAEMS, is a professor of emergency medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and the former director of the Office of Prehospital and Disaster Medicine, also at Wake Forest. He is also an associate professor at the Childress Institute for Pediatric Trauma at Wake Forest University and an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Military Medicine at Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine, in Parker, Colorado. Dr. Alson received his bachelor's degree from the University of Virginia in 1974 and both his PhD and an MD from the Bowman Gray School of Medicine of Wake Forest University (1982, 1985). He completed his residency in emergency medicine at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and is board certified in both emergency medicine and emergency medical services by the American Board of Emergency Medicine.

Dr. Alson's EMS career began in the early 1970s as an EMT in New York City. As a graduate student, he became a member of the Winston-Salem Rescue Squad and began working for the Forsyth County EMS as an EMT. Upon completion of his residency, Dr. Alson returned to Wake Forest University and the Forsyth County EMS system, serving as assistant medical director for 14 years and medical director since 2003. He remains actively involved in the education of EMS personnel.

Dr. Alson's involvement with ITLS dates to the 1980s. He served as the North Carolina chapter medical director for 15 years. Since the early 1990s, Dr. Alson has been a member of the editorial board for ITLS as well as a contributing author. He was the co-editor-in-chief for the 8th edition of this textbook.

Along with EMS, disaster medicine is an area of interest. Dr. Alson served as the medical director for the North Carolina State Medical Response System (NC SMAT) program. He has served as the chairman of the Disaster Preparedness and Response Committee for the American College of Emergency Physicians from 2011 until 2016, a member of the EMS Committee for ACEP, and a member of the EMS Committee for the American Academy of Emergency Physicians. Dr. Alson was the chairman of the NAEMSP Disaster Preparedness Committee in 2014-2016.

Dr. Alson served with the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) for 28 years, most recently as a member of the International Medical Surgical Response Team East (IMSURT-E). He previously served as the commander and deputy commander for the North Carolina Disaster Medical Assistance Team (NC-DMAT-1) and deputy commander of the NMRT-E.

Dr. Alson has responded to numerous nationally declared disasters. He continues to teach about the delivery of care in austere and surge-type conditions and has lectured nationally and internationally on prehospital trauma care and disaster medicine.

He and his wife, Rebecca, reside in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Kyee H. Han, MBBS, FRCS, FRCEM, is a consultant in trauma and emergency medicine at the James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough, which is a regional major trauma center in the North East of England. He is also honorary medical director to the North East Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust. Dr. Han completed his undergraduate medical training at the Institute of Medicine in Rangoon, Burma, in 1976. Following his internship and senior house officer surgical rotational training in Birmingham, UK, he worked as a surgical registrar and was awarded the FRCS in 1981.

After gaining cardiothoracic surgical experience in Leicester, Dr. Han decided to pursue a career in an up-and-coming specialty then known as accident and emergency medicine (A&E) in the UK. He entered the Northern Deanery residency/specialist training program at the Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) in Newcastle upon Tyne and Middlesbrough General Hospital (MGH). On receiving his certificate of completion in specialist training (CCST), Dr. Han was appointed as consultant at MGH in 1990.

Over his working life as an emergency physician, he has taken on many management, training, and advisory roles, including the positions of clinical director in A&E, honorary senior lecturer at Newcastle University, chairman of the Specialist Training Committee for the Northern Deanery, and college examiner and regional chair for the Royal College of Emergency Medicine Board. Dr. Han also served on the board for the North Tyneside Clinical Commissioning Group as secondary care specialist doctor.

Management of the acutely injured has been Dr. Han's interest and passion. Realizing very early in his career how prehospital care can influence patient outcome, he has always dedicated considerable time in prehospital training of the EMS (ambulance, fire, police) and voluntary agencies like the St. John Ambulance. For his years of service as county surgeon and county medical officer, he was awarded the status of officer (brother) in the Order of St. John in 2004. Regionally, Dr. Han is a trustee on the board of Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS), which is a publicly funded organization serving the North of England with the Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS). It deploys a physician and paramedic team to provide enhanced medical care on scene.

Dr. Han's involvement with ITLS dates to 1995. He served as the chapter medical director for Tees East and North Yorkshire and the Cleveland Fire and Rescue Service Training Centre and currently as the chapter medical director for North East England. Since 2011, he has been an editorial board member as well as a contributing author. He leads the research work group and the research forum, which is an integral part of the annual international trauma conference.

Throughout his career, Dr. Han has always actively welcomed, promoted and collaborated with any prehospital emergency service capable of enhancing the outcome of patients. Internationally, he led a team of ITLS instructors in training in Lilongwe, Malawi, twice. This training has since been cascaded to trauma care providers in all parts of Malawi, where incidence of trauma and mortality are high. More recently, the ITLS board of directors envisioned piloting a regional ITLS forum in Europe and Dr. Han co-chairs the group, successfully bringing the European ITLS family closer. With this edition, he joins Professor Alson as associate editor.

He and his wife, Sally, reside in Norton, Stockton on Tees, United Kingdom.

John E. Campbell, MD, FACEP (deceased), received his BS degree in pharmacy from Auburn University in 1966 and his medical degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1970. He practiced emergency medicine for 40 years, in Alabama, Georgia, New Mexico and Texas. Dr. Campbell became interested in prehospital care in 1972, when he was asked to teach a basic EMT course to members of the Clay County Rescue Squad. He remained an honorary member of that outstanding group after his teaching assignment. Dr. Campbell then served as medical director of many EMT and paramedic training programs. He recently retired as the medical director for EMS and trauma for the State of Alabama.

From the original basic trauma life support course, an international organization of teachers of trauma care developed called International Trauma Life Support, Inc., or ITLS. Dr. Campbell served as its president since the inception of the organization.

Dr. Campbell was the author of the first edition of the Basic Trauma Life Support textbook and continued to be the editor through to this new edition, now entitled International Trauma Life Support for Emergency Care Providers. He was also the coauthor of Homeland Security and Emergency Medical Response and Tactical Emergency Medical Essentials.

Dr. Campbell was a member of the first faculty of emergency medicine at the School of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. In 1991 he was the first recipient of the American College of Emergency Medicine's EMS Award for outstanding achievement of national significance in the area of EMS. In 2001 Dr. Campbell received the Ronald D. Stewart Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of EMS Physicians. He died in August 2018.