Courtesy of Andrew Oberle
After a near-deadly chimp attack five years ago, Andrew Oberle has recovered and is starting an institute to help other trauma patients.
Five years ago, Andrew Oberle woke up in a hospital bed, emerging from a coma after being attacked by chimps at an animal sanctuary. At the time, he didn’t imagine that he’d go on to have an unexpected recovery, become a national news sensation, and start an institute that seeks to revolutionize the treatment of trauma patients at Saint Louis University Hospital.
Now, though, he’s launching the pilot program of the Oberle Institute, a trauma care program that combines SLU’s medical facilities with a holistic, wellness-oriented approach: following “a patient from surviving to thriving.”
While Oberle had envisioned himself as working with chimps since he was a childhood, he says what he’s doing now isn’t a stretch: “I’m still trying to help individuals who go through trauma. I’m just working with humans instead of not humans.”
Naming the institute after himself wasn’t his idea. At first, the idea emerged as the Center for Integrative Reconstruction and Rehabilitation. But that name is long and unwieldy, and another person involved in the project suggested: Someone in an ambulance isn’t going to remember the long name. They’re going to remember the name of the guy who had more than $1 million worth of injuries and survived.
Read also: Saving Andrew Oberle, a profile of Oberle and his recovery
“It’s very humbling that people have so much faith in me and what I can possibly do,” Oberle says. At first, having his name on the project made him uncomfortable. But a friend made him realize: “It’s not about me: It’s about what my name represents for other trauma patients. It’s about that legacy of what I’ve overcome and what SLU has helped me overcome.”
Mike Higgins, assistant vice president of medical center development at SLU, approached Oberle several years ago to begin planning the new program. “What did you experience in your recovery that gave you this ability to thrive so well?” SLU asked. “What did you wish you had?”
The Oberle Institute hopes to become the answer to that question, providing everything Oberle credits for his recovery, and more. Dr. Bruce Kraemer, Oberle’s own plastic surgeon, will be joining the team. But it won’t look like a traditional medical program.
“When it comes to trauma, it’s not just about the physical aspects,” Oberle says. “You really have to deal with the trauma itself, not just the injuries.”
The institute collects a “trauma response team” of people who don’t normally work together: a chaplain, dog therapist, professional counselor, music therapist, social worker, trauma nurse, plastic surgeon, and occupational therapist. They’ll address not just the physical injuries, says Oberle, but also the spiritual—meaning not faith or religion, but mental health and outlook. “If your spirits are high, you’ll have such an easier time dealing with the other parts of recovery.”
The program bridges programs in nutrition, speech-language, psychology, ministry, social work, and music and animal therapy. “All these little things focus on the whole person, not just patching up a person’s wounds and sending them to rehab,” adds Oberle.
Oberle’s been pursuing a master’s degree in health administration, to help him understand what’s required of a program like the institute. Since announcing the program’s pilot earlier this month, the institute has worked with its first patient. Next it will focusing on four more patients to demonstrate that the program works by measuring these patients’ outcomes against those of other trauma patients.
Oberle hopes that the program can provide a community that will increase healing. “I didn’t feel like a patient who was going to the hospital every day,” he says; instead, he felt like he was visiting friends and family, a community that made him excited for recovery and made him think, “Oh my gosh, I’m alive.”
He has big dreams for the program. If all goes well, the Oberle Institute could serve every trauma patient in SLU’s hospital, hire its own dedicated team, get its own facility, offer both inpatient and outpatient care, allow groundbreaking interdisciplinary research on trauma care, improve clinical care all over the world, and take its model to international mission sites, as well. To do that, they’ll need funding, administrative support, and community trust.
For now, the Oberle Institute is beginning with smaller tests and gradual growth, to “bridge that patient wellness to community wellness” with as many patients as it can serve reasonably and wholly.
At its heart, Oberle’s intent is simple: “We’re all St. Louisans and Missourians, and just because you went through some traumatic injuries doesn’t mean you have to be separate from that.
“I think I survived for a reason, and this is the reason," he says. "I’m here to help as many people as I can and let them know that if they experience trauma as well, there’s a way to get through it. There’s a way to transform from that trauma.”
The Oberle Institute aims to provide that transformation, reassuring its patients that “they still have a life after their trauma.”
