R Adams Cowley

R Adams Cowley (July 25, 1917 – October 27, 1991) was an American surgeon who is considered a pioneer in emergency medicine and the treatment of life-threatening shock following severe traumatic injury. Called the "Father of Trauma Medicine", 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 the effects of shock in wounded soldiers—the first award of its kind in the United States. The trauma unit initially consisted of two beds, and was later expanded to four beds. Many people called the four-bed unit the "death lab."

Cowley coined the concept of the "Golden Hour" in trauma medicine: the period of 60 minutes or less following traumatic injury when immediate definitive care is crucial to a trauma patient's survival. He was among the first physicians in the US to use helicopters for medical evacuations of civilians, beginning in 1969, and he founded the Society of Thoracic Surgeons.

He also founded the nation's first statewide EMS system, the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems (MIEMSS) by Executive Order of Maryland's then Governor Mandel in 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.

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 1950s, "The Death lab" was officially opened at the University of Maryland Hospital in 1955. The center was renamed in May 1989 the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center of the University of Maryland Hospital. In 1944, while still in the U.S. Army, Dr Cowley had pioneered the once controversial but now universally accepted concept of the "Golden Hour". With over 400 published professional articles, chapters, books, and white papers to his credit, Cowley was a pioneer in raising awareness of trauma prevention. Prior to 1966, Dr Cowley was on the Board of the National Sciences Commission as well the President’s Commission of Highway Safety. He was member of a group of scientists who worked to write the famous White Paper "Accidental Death and Injury - The neglected American Disease". The paper was the turning point for EMS in the USA. President Lyndon Johnson and the country were shocked by recommendations of the White paper and countless laws were enacted to address this crisis.

In 1986, at Cowley's request and with the support of Maryland Senator Mathias, Ronald Reagan, then President of the United States, signed an act authorizing the establishment of "The National Center For The Study of Trauma and Emergency Medical Services" and appointed Dr Cowley as its founder and first director. This center, is still in operation today is located at the University of Maryland. 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.

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. He attended medical school at the University of Maryland, from which he graduated in 1944. 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.

Cowley was born in Layton, Utah, on July 25, 1917. He 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, raising cows and farming.