Messenger - Vol. 3, No. 4, Page 29
Summer 1994
Alumni Profile: Highways to ski slopes, trauma's her terrain

     When Linda Laskowski Jones was in the ninth grade, she
volunteered at the St. Francis Hospital emergency room in Wilmington,
Del., loved it and decided nursing was the career for her.
     Today, Jones, Delaware '83, '87M, the trauma clinical coordinator
at the Medical Center of Delaware, is vice president of the Delaware
Board of Nursing and was recently recognized for outstanding service
to her profession.
     Named Nurse of the Year by the Delaware Nurses Association in the
spring, the clinical nurse specialist also received an excellence-in-
nursing award as a nurse educator from the medical center.
     At Christiana Hospital, Delaware's officially designated trauma
center, Jones serves on the frontline of patient care as coordinator
and trauma team nurse. As coordinator of the trauma team, Jones
ensures that the levels of trauma care are high, and that policies and
protocols are in place and carried out. As a clinical nurse
specialist, she administers hands-on care to patients. And as a member
of the mobile intensive care nurse team, she uses her skills during
ambulance and helicopter transport of critically ill patients.
     In the community, she teaches about trauma prevention in schools,
factories and offices.
     Trauma means bodily injury, Jones explained, and three or four
cases reach Christiana Hospital every 24 hours. The majority of trauma
patients are victims of automobile crashes, but may also be victims of
shootings, knifings or injuries on the job, at home or in other
settings.
     Jones works in tandem with emergency room staff when trauma
victims arrive. The trauma team is usually notified when patients are
in transit, and the team is at the ready to carry out whatever
procedures or surgery are needed.
     The job of the trauma team does not end there, Jones says. The
team follows up on trauma victims' care from hospital admission to
discharge and arranges subsequent rehabilitation and care when
appropriate.
     "We take a holistic approach to patient care. We see that
patients start rehabilitation and arrange for care after the hospital.
If a trauma patient has a drug or alcohol problem, we address that and
don't simply discharge them," Jones says.
     When Jones speaks about trauma care and trauma prevention, her
presentations are tailored to the age of the audience. She stresses
basic safety and trauma prevention to small children, giving teenagers
more graphic descriptions about the consequences of unsafe driving
and, in particular, driving after drinking.
     She also instructs professionals about critical and trauma care.
She teaches critical care at the local Veterans' Hospital as a
consultant, lectures graduate nurse interns at the medical center and,
every summer since 1989, has taught a five-week neurosurgical course
at the University.
     Jones is married to Larry Jones, Delaware '81, who works for the
Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.
They met while undergraduates as ambulance volunteers on the
University of Delaware campus.
     The couple enjoys hiking, backpacking and camping. When winter
arrives, they take to the slopes for skiing. But, because they both
are on a volunteer ski patrol, they are often called upon to use their
emergency care skills for injured skiers on mountain trails. "Larry
does the heavy work of transporting skiers on sleds to the first aid
station below," Jones says.
                                                   -Sue Swyers Moncure