Stepping back one year, in 1964, the United States government instituted a military draft (which would eventually draft 2.2 million men into military service over the next nine years); McSwain was one of those eligible men. The Vietnam War was entering into its tenth year and battlefield trauma and tropical diseases were wreaking havoc on troops deployed overseas. With medicine and a little bit of luck on his side, McSwain joined the United States Air Force under the Berry Plan. In a nutshell, the Berry Plan (named for Dr. Frank B. Berry, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health and Medicine under President Dwight D. Eisenhower) allowed physicians wishing to serve in the military a plan to defer residency in favor of a two-year active duty service.

In 1970, after completing over one thousand surgical procedures under the watchful eyes of staff at Emory University School of Medicine and Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. Norman McSwain completed his surgical residency and was ready for his civilian career.

Dr. McSwain entered into private practice but a fateful appointment as Medical Director at the Road Atlanta Race Track solidified his interest in emergency medicine and trauma care. In 1973 he took an appointment as Associate Professor of Surgery at Kansas School of Medicine. While in Kansas City, McSwain also became the Medical Director for the Kansas City Fire Department, Paramedic Program; the Johnson County’s MED-ACT paramedic service; and also served as the Kansas state Medical Director where he was instrumental in developing a state-wide EMS system and a standardized curriculum for EMTs and paramedics. By the time McSwain left Kansas, one out of every five hundred residents in Kansas (including the entire Kansas Highway Patrol) was trained as at least a basic EMT and 90% of the population was covered by paramedic quality care within a remarkable 10 minutes response time to any emergency.

In 1977, Dr. Norm McSwain joined the staff of Tulane University School of Medicine and Charity Hospital; one of the top three trauma centers in the United States. It is through his role at Tulane and his work across the city of New Orleans that Dr. McSwain would make his biggest mark.

Working with the city of New Orleans, Dr. McSwain was able to replicate and expand the work he had started in Kansas training first responders in pre-hospital trauma care. He continued to focus his training on rapid and immediate medical care for patients prior to arriving at the hospital. By advocating and training first responders to treat anything from shooting victims to stabbings to multi-vehicle trauma, McSwain pioneered in the field trauma care for civilian EMS providers at all levels.

Dr. McSwain’s legacy for pre-hospital trauma care is probably most solidified in his work on the American College of Surgeons’ Committee on Trauma at both, the state (KS & LA), and national levels. Along with the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT), Dr. McSawin founded the Pre-hospital Trauma Life Support organization and developed the subsequent curriculum that has trained over one million providers in 64 countries to provide quality medical care for trauma patients prior to transport to a medical center. In addition to civilian training, Dr. McSwain’s dedication to trauma care laid the groundwork for the Tactical Combat Causality Care training used by tactical military units at home and on deployment.

According to his obituary: “Immediately following the active shooter disaster at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, Dr. McSwain agreed to be a founding member of the Committee to Develop a National Policy to Increase Survival from Active Shooter and Intentional Mass Casualty Events. He brought the dedication, passion, and intellect for which he was famous to the Hartford Consensus deliberations. He fiercely advocated for an organized coordinated prehospital response that incorporated hemorrhage control by immediate bystander responders, a change in focus of the mission of law enforcement to include immediate stopping of life-threatening hemorrhage of victims, and an urgent response by emergency medical personnel to treat and transport trauma patients to the appropriate trauma hospitals. He recognized that time was a critical factor in patients who had massive bleeding.” Dr. McSwain was an early contemporary proponent of the Stop the Bleed philosophy – providing communities with tools to respond on a basic level to trauma while waiting for EMS and a wider coordinated response. Stop the Bleed programs have reemerged in community first aid courses, scouting and school programs, and corporate onboarding training for many companies and organizations across the country

• Fellow of the American College of Surgeons
• Professor of Surgery at Tulane University School of Medicine
• Clinical Professor of Surgery at Louisiana State University and Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences.
• Trauma Director of the Spirit of Charity (Level I) Trauma Center
• Medical Director and Founder of Pre-Hospital Trauma Life Support
• Chair of Tulane Medical Center Emergency Medicine Section
• Section Chief of Trauma/Critical Care at Tulane Medical Center
• Police Surgeon for the New Orleans Police Department
• Medical Director for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival for 30 years
• Vice Chairman of the Department of Surgery at Tulane University School of Medicine
• Residency Program Director of the Department of Surgery, Tulane University School of Medicine for 15 years
• New Orleans Police Department Police Surgeon for 35 years