CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Dr. Philip Caropreso was recently recognized with the Dr. Tom Foley Iowa Trauma System Achievement Award during a conference in Altoona on Sept. 11.

ALTOONA — Dr. Philip Caropreso was honored at Iowa’s 2024 Trauma and Preparedness Conference in Altoona, Iowa, which was held on Wednesday, Sept. 11. The conference was hosted by the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services Bureau of Emergency Medical and Trauma Services and the Bureau of Emergency Preparedness and Response, along with the American College of Surgeons — Committee on Trauma (COT), Iowa Chapter.

Dr. Caropreso was presented the Dr. Tom Foley Iowa Trauma System Achievement Award by Dr. Richard Sidwell – a trauma surgeon at Iowa Methodist Medical Center who has served as the COT Chief for Region VII (Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri). Sidwell outlined for the audience the important role Caropreso has played in the way trauma care has evolved in Iowa.

“Dr. Caropreso became the Iowa COT Chair in 2002,” Sidwell said. “While COT Chair, Dr. Caropreso became very active with the Iowa trauma system and with national (ACS) trauma care verifications.” He said that Caropreso and the team would arrive in the evening before conducting the site survey and make the trauma center call a trauma alert, which Sidwell said caused many of those in the trauma centers to get heart palpitations.

Sidwell spoke of how “Dr. Caropreso brought his experience from national (ACS) reviews and he pushed us to be better.” He did this by:

• Pushing against apathy

• Emphasizing continuing education

• Lobbying for a system consultation

• Arguing for chart reviews and emphasis on PI as part of the verification reviews

• [Lobbying for] meaningful consequences when a facility had deficiencies in verification

“These were hard things for our system to bear, and his opinions weren’t always very popular,” continued Sidwell. “I note that we now do everything that Dr. Caropreso pushed for!”

“I have been in Iowa since 1976, and I have served in Keokuk since 1998,” Caropreso said in an interview. “I have had many blessings in the 37 years of practice. Receiving the Foley Award completes all of my blessings. Dr. Foley taught me to be: compassionate in heart; Clear in word; Gracious in awareness; Courageous in thought; and Generous in love.”

Dr. Thomas Foley, MD, FACS, was a surgeon who had graduated from the Creighton University School of Medicine, did the first two years of surgical training at the University of Kentucky, and completed the final three years at the University of Iowa. He had served two years in the U.S. Air Force and then set up practice in Marshalltown, where he was the town’s general surgeon for more than 30 years.

He was interested in trauma care and served as the Iowa State Chair for the American College of Surgeons Committee (COT) on Trauma, and later as a member of the national COT. Not only that, but he also taught at more than 100 ATLS courses, served as the trauma center reviewer for the state, and was one of the chief architects of the Iowa Trauma System. He was a champion for rural trauma care and co-authored the Rural Trauma Team Development Course, which is now an international course that has been translated into several languages.

In recognition of his career of service and advocacy on behalf of injured people, the Iowa Committee on Trauma established the “Dr. Tom Foley Trauma System Achievement Award,” the award that Dr. Caropreso received.