History of TEC

In 1986, a group of nurse educators, trauma program managers and clinical nurse specialists from San Francisco Bay area trauma centers met to discuss trauma educational needs. There were about 16 nurses in the initial group of founding members. The group was most interested in providing a Pediatric Trauma education course. Children’s Hospital Oakland took the lead for this project. The Pediatric course was offered at 3 different locations so that nurses from the Bay area trauma centers had a site that would be in closer proximity to attend.

 The initial institutional members of TEC:

Children’s Hospital Oakland, Oakland

Eden Hospital Medical Center, Castro Valley

Highland General Hospital. Oakland

John Muir Medical Center, Walnut Creek

San Francisco General Hospital, San Francisco

San Jose Medical Center, San Jose

Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, San Jose

Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford

Affiliate member: University of California, Department of Physiological Nursing, Critical Care/Trauma Program 

The goal of the consortium was to provide quality trauma education at an affordable cost to Bay area Trauma Centers. The Trauma Education Core Course was one of the offered education courses by TEC. Officers were elected within TEC and non-profit status was obtained.

The first Totally Trauma conference was held in Incline Village Lake Tahoe in 1987. This was a 3 day morning conference with the afternoons free to ski or participate in other activities. This conference was held in the winter so that participants could take advantage of skiing after the conference on the half days.

 “A Day of Trauma Case Studies” has also been a staple of TEC from the beginning.

And we even qualified for an article in the International Journal of Trauma Nursing:

Dimitrakopoulos, Christine and Ruiz-Contreras, Anita. “Trauma Education Consortium, A Multicenter Approach to Trauma Nursing Education.” <em>International Journal of Trauma Nursing</em>, Vol. 2, no. 4, Oct-Dec, 1996, pp. 111-115.

In, 1997 only about 70 people registered for that years conference. The TEC members were ready to help pay with their own personal credit cards to cover the hotel conference fees. Since then we’ve grown to provide an amazing educational experience that plays host to over 300+ nurses, pre-hospital providers, therapists and more!

Since the dawn of our first Totally Trauma, we have played host to 30 total conferences! We have provided countless amounts of low cost continuing education to the Bay Area and Beyond and continue to have as much fun doing it as we did back in 1986! We want to not only thank our members and participating centers through the years but also our amazing participants! You are the reason we keep doing what we do!

Over the years we have hosted events all over California as you can see below:

Hyatt Lake Tahoe, Incline Village – 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995

Caesars Tahoe- South Shore – 1996, 1997, 1998

Double Tree Hotel – Monterey 1999

Embassy Suites – Napa 2000, 2001

Hyatt Regency – Monterey – 2002, 2003, 2004

Embassy Suites Monterey-Seaside – 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008

MontBleu Resort –Lake Tahoe – 2009, 2010, 2011, 2015

Marriot Monterey – 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2019

Sonoma Wine Country at the Doubletree by Hilton – 2018, 2022

From Ski Havens of Tahoe, To the Vines of Wine Country and Out To The Shores of The Monterey Coastside, TEC traverses through California in order to improve trauma care!