UC Davis’ new emergency department’s first patient gets a surprise diagnosis.

It’s an all-too-familiar story: The caretaker suddenly finds herself needing care. But when Corning resident Yvonne Bennett, 63, unexpectedly needed emergency care last October while tending to her granddaughter, who was undergoing surgery for a birth defect at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, there was an unusual twist.

Bennett’s rush to the emergency room, suffering from shortness of breath, made her the first-ever patient treated in the new Michael W. Chapman Emergency and Trauma Center, within the medical center’s recently opened Surgery and Emergency Services Pavilion.

Her surprising initial diagnosis? Tuberculosis — a shock for retired rancher Bennett, who wasn’t sure where or how she could have contracted the disease. The diagnosis was later confirmed as mycobacterium avium complex, or MAC, a pulmonary bacterial infection that is treated with antibiotics. MAC is less contagious and does not require the stringent isolation requirements of a tuberculosis diagnosis. Bennett did spend time in isolation as a precaution before her final diagnosis could be confirmed.

It all started when she was driving to the hospital to be at granddaughter Harmony Bennett’s side. Bennett had been staying at the Sacramento Ronald McDonald House, which provides accommodations for families whose children are receiving treatment. Abruptly finding herself nearly unable to breathe, she summoned a passerby who in turn flagged down a hospital staff member. Soon an ambulance and the police arrived, and Bennett was on her way to the emergency room — and to a place forever in the new facility’s lore.

“I’m so glad it all happened at the UC Davis Medical Center because the illness might not have been diagnosed so quickly elsewhere,” said Bennett, whose great-grandparents were among six couples to first settle the Corning area.

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New emergency department is more than double the size of the previous one.

A new era in emergency and trauma care dawns at UC Davis Medical Center on Wednesday (Oct. 6) when the center’s expanded, state-of-the-art emergency department opens to the public for both walk-in patient and ambulance traffic.

The emergency department is relocating after decades at its former location on V Street. One of the largest and busiest emergency departments in Northern California, and the largest in the Sacramento region, UC Davis serves a 33-county area and beyond. At more than 40,000 square feet, the new facility is more than double the size of the old, approximately 19,000-square-foot emergency department. The department has nearly two-thirds more patient beds, 68 versus 42 in the former emergency department.

The $32 million facility houses the only level 1 pediatric and adult trauma center in all of Northern California. There are only three level 1 pediatric and adult trauma centers in California. The other two — Loma Linda University Medical Center and Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center — are located in Southern California.

“This highly sophisticated facility enables UC Davis to respond to the growing, critical health needs of the people of Northern California,” said Ann Madden Rice, chief executive officer, UC Davis Medical Center. “As the only level 1 adult and pediatric trauma center in Northern California, UC Davis Medical Center has long focused on treating patients with the most complex and urgent illnesses and injuries — but we have been limited by our facilities. The opening of the emergency department marks a new era in meeting our community’s urgent trauma and emergency needs.”

Named the Michael W. Chapman Emergency and Trauma Center, the new facility’s state-of-the-art equipment and larger patient-care areas dramatically improve accessibility and treatment for the more than 55,000 patients who each year are admitted to the emergency department. It also improves the efficiency of admission and patient flow at UC Davis Medical Center.

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The Surgery and Emergency Services Pavilion, now more than 90 percent complete, is the largest, most complex and most far-reaching project ever undertaken not only by UC Davis Health System, but by UC Davis as a whole.

When completed, the pavilion will have dramatically altered the landscape at the core of UC Davis’ Sacramento campus. UC Davis Medical Center’s Main Hospital will have a new main entrance: The existing tower lobby entrance will be replaced with a new entrance and lobby to the east.

The pavilion is scheduled to open in summer 2010.

The Sacramento and Northern California region depend upon the specialized services and expertise that are available only at UC Davis Medical Center. However, the demand for the medical center’s services long ago outgrew its facilities. The medical center has been operating at capacity for several years and, at times, has been forced to turn away all but the most seriously ill and injured. In addition, the availability of operating rooms has become increasingly difficult as a growing population requires more surgery services.

The pavilion will meet a combined need to comply with state seismic safety standards and to add more space and beds for programs currently in undersized, inadequate facilities. Senate Bill 1953, passed by the state Legislature in 1994, requires all California acute-care hospitals to meet sweeping new seismic safety standards.

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