SIPI Students with Flight for Life Crew and helicopter

MCW Comprehensive Injury Center Summer Injury Prevention Institute

Developing and nurturing new injury researchers and innovative projects is key to the CIC’s mission. The CIC has hosted an annual, eight-week Summer Injury Prevention Institute (SIPI) as part of its mission since its inception in 2002. Students are selected from the Medical School Summer Research Program (MSSRP) who have a specific focus on injury prevention and control for their summer research project. Participants are typically second-year medical students who attend with the support of a T35 grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging. SIPI also welcomes students from MCW’s graduate and pharmacy schools, along with undergraduate students. In 2017, SIPI welcomed its first high school student, who participated as part of an MCW high school research program.

A total of 448 students have participated in the Series, with an average of 18 students participating each summer. Pre-/post-quiz results consistently demonstrate that the number of students interested in pursuing injury research after medical school increases after attending SIPI sessions.

SIPI Goals

We hope that by increasing students’ knowledge and understanding of injury prevention and control we are contributing to a physician workforce that understands the importance of a public health approach to injury prevention, that implements public health principles in practice, and that advocates for policies and practices that positively impact injury prevention and control to help make our communities healthier and safer.

SIPI Topics:

SIPI students meet one to two times each week over the course of the eight-week session. They learn about injury-related topics including:

Injury as a Disease and Developing a Research Question
Preventing Falls Across the Continuum
The Opioid Epidemic
Interpersonal Violence Across the Continuum
Trauma System of Experience Tour: How Age Impacts Care and Recovery

• Gun Violence Across the Age Continuum
• Suicide Prevention: Data and Considerations for Pediatric and Adult Health Care Providers
• Traumatic Brain Injury
• Student Research Presentations

Trauma System of Experience Tour

As part of SIPI, students can attend the Trauma System of Experience Tour. This provides them with the opportunity to walk through a trauma patient’s complete system of care that they receive when being treated by a health care system for their injuries. It also allows students to gain a better understanding of their patients’ experiences. The system of care can vary from patient to patient, depending on the level of injury, but may start when a person is seen by first responders and potentially goes all the way until they are seen by physical therapy and rehabilitation.

For the purposes of the Tour, students are given a fictional scenario and then walked through the fictional patient’s system of care to treat all of their medical needs. This typically includes:

Talking to Wauwatosa Fire Department paramedics in the Froedtert ambulance bay.
Talking to the Flight for Life transport crew on the roof of Froedtert.
Role playing in the trauma resuscitation bay.
Visiting and viewing the Department of Radiology and radiology equipment.
Touring the Intensive Care Unit.
Visiting the Rehabilitation gym to learn about physical therapy and rehabilitation treatment.
Debriefing as a group at the end of the day.