On May 4, the Trauma Center and Department of Pastoral Care held their annual Service of Remembrance for patients who died from gunshot and stab wounds the previous year, despite all efforts to save them. As was the case last year, due to COVID, the service was broadcast to the patients’ families and later shared with hospital staff.
Patrick Kim, MD, a Trauma surgeon and vice-chief of Traumatology, Surgical Critical Care, and Emergency Surgery at PPMC, told families, “We dedicate ourselves to providing the world’s best trauma care, through experience, learning, and intense self-evaluation … and so we, the Trauma Center, hurt from the loss of a human life.”
At the event, retired PPMC nurse Becky Aker played the harp, as she does every year, while Trauma Center staff, including surgeons, nurses, chaplains, and program staff, lit candles and recognized each of the 100 Presby patients who died from violent penetrating injuries in 2021.
“They shine for lives that will not be forgotten. They shine for us the preciousness of life,” said John Ehman, PPMC’s manager of Pastoral Care. “They shine against the fog of violence that shrouds our community and, in their light, may we see paths for healing – a healing of our own hearts and a healing of our broken world.”