A Trip to the ER
The emergency room at Northwestern Memorial Hospital handles 72,000 visits a year – and not one of those is a patient from the animal world. Which might seem to make the hospital’s ER an odd partner for Lincoln Park Zoo. Partner it is; odd it’s not.

“We’ve had a long-standing relationship with the zoo, but fortunately we don’t get a lot of injuries or illnesses from them,” says Dr. James Adams, Professor and Chief of Emergency Medicine at Northwestern and a member of the zoo’s Medical Advisory Committee. “What’s important is that we’re part of their overall safety plan, which includes contingencies for unusual events.”

That could be anything from a staff member contracting a zoonotic disease (a disease that can be transmitted to people from animals) to an animal keeper suffering a rattlesnake bite. In the latter instance, a bite victim would be taken to Northwestern, along with anti-venom from the zoo’s supply. “We wouldn’t want anyone at the zoo injecting the anti-venom. It’s not that simple,” Adams says. “That’s a life-threatening situation in which all kinds of body systems are affected.”

The zoo and the hospital also work together on a concern that has affected people and animals in the Chicago area and throughout the state in the past few years: West Nile virus.

“The zoo has a monitoring system in place, so if they were to see an increase of West Nile virus in animals, we would probably see it in humans too,” Adams says. “That kind of information can benefit both of us. If we start seeing flulike symptoms, and it’s not the flu season, it alerts us to look for something like West Nile.”

The zoo worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Chicago Department of Public Health to install mosquito monitoring devices on-grounds with the intent that they would serve as an early-warning system for human health, says Dominic Travis, D.V.M., the Davee Center epidemiologist.

“When mosquitoes have West Nile virus they’re biting both humans and animals,” Travis says. “Sharing that information gives everyone a better understanding of what’s happening in the bigger ecological picture.”