Staffed and equipped according to guidelines of the American College of Surgeons, the emergency department handles an annual volume of around 30,000 patients. Citizens’ emergency department has been designated as a Lead Level III trauma facility in this area by the Texas Department of Health.

Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS)
Trauma Nurse Core Curriculum
Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS)
Board certified physicians
Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS)
Certified emergency nurses
Basic Trauma Life Support (BTLS)
Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP)
Certified Critical Care Registered Nurse (CRRN)

Other training includes prevention and outreach programs aimed at educating preteens and teenagers through the Emergency Nurses Council Alcohol Emergencies (ENCARE) program, safety education programs for children and parents, and the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) program.
Chest Pain Center — The Chest Pain Center at Citizens Medical Center opened in February, 2005 and provides patients with potential life threatening cardiac disease the opportunity for quick evaluation and treatment by the emergency room staff. There are four chest pain beds physically located in the emergency room.

The Society of Chest Pain Centers has granted the designation of Accredited Chest Pain Center to Citizens Medical Center - Victoria, Texas for receiving full accreditation from the Accreditation Review Committee on March 9, 2005. Citizens Medical Center is the 13th accredited Chest Pain Center in Texas and the 106th in the nation.

Heart attacks are the leading cause of death in the United States, with 600,000 dying annually of heart disease. More than five million Americans visit hospitals each year with chest pain. The goal of the Society of Chest Pain Centers is to significantly reduce the mortality rate of these patients by teaching the public to recognize and react to the early symptoms of a possible heart attack, reduce the time that it takes to receive treatment, and increase the accuracy and effectiveness of treatment.

The Chest Pain Center’s protocol driven and systematic approach to patient management allows physicians to reduce time to treatment during the critical early stages of a heart attack, when treatments are most effective, and to better monitor patients when it is not clear whether they are having a coronary event. Such observation helps ensure that a patient is neither sent home too early nor needlessly admitted.

With the rise of Chest Pain Centers comes the need to establish standards designed to improve the consistency and quality of care provided to patients. The Society’s accreditation process insures centers meet or exceed quality of care measures in acute cardiac medicine.

The Women’s Pavilion — The Women’s Pavilion opened in October, 1997 to provide a complete array of obstetrical services. The eleven bed LDRP (labor, delivery, recovery, post-partum) unit provides for single room maternity care in a beautiful and comfortable homelike setting. Two of the patient care rooms have been specifically designed to provide barrier free access. When the Women’s Pavilion reaches capacity, moms and babies are moved to the 6 South nursing unit where their nursing care is never interrupted and provided by the same staff as in the Women’s Pavilion.