Froedtert & The Medical College of Wisconsin Department of Neurosurgery continues in its extensive research in vehicle crashworthiness in collaboration with The Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN). Here, Froedtert & The Medical College is equipped with a full-scale crash laboratory facilities to help significantly reduce the number of deaths on the nation's roadways and mitigate the severity of injuries sustained in motor vehicle crashes. The Froedtert & The Medical College CIREN Center is the first to focus its activities on brain and spinal cord injuries in motor vehicle crashes, concentrating on injuries in the very young and the elderly. Early efforts to improve the safety of motor vehicles took place in an environment that made it necessary for safety engineers to investigate real-world crashes and work closely with physicians in order to understand how injuries occurred to real people. This effort led to the development of crash test dummies and crashworthiness standards that have helped to significantly reduce the number of deaths on the nation's roadways and mitigate the severity of injuries sustained in motor vehicle crashes. During this process, however, the focus of automotive safety engineers shifted to designing vehicles that produced "good numbers" from the instruments measuring impact forces on crash test dummies. The CIREN program aims to return the focus to understanding how injuries occur to real people. Video clips of crash dummies are available for viewing at http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/real/index.html. The Froedtert & The Medical College CIREN Center is sponsored by the administration of the Department of Neurosurgery, which includes clinicians, biomedical engineers, and research scientists with strong reputations in impact biomechanics. Real-world crashes are investigated to further the following objectives:
The CIREN Center at Froedtert & The Medical College derives its uniqueness and strengths from:
a) Internationally renowned surgeons and researchers at the trauma center b) World-class biomechanics and engineering investigators c) The unparalleled impact testing facilities The close collaboration between these groups, housed on a single campus, provides an ideal environment to achieve the CIREN Center's objectives and the CIREN program's aims. This CIREN Center is the first to focus its activities on brain and spinal cord injuries in motor vehicle crashes, concentrating on injuries in the very young and the elderly. Special attention will also be given to assuring quality improvement measures for injury scaling and crash investigation. For further information regarding the Froedtert & The Medical College CIREN Center, contact one of the following at WICIREN@mcw.edu.