Trauma Surgery Lifestyle

[crockett]

I was just wondering if anyone knows what the lifestyle is like for a trauma surgeon. Would it be similar to an intensivist where you are on call for a week and then have a bunch of time off, or are most trauma surgeons just general surgeons who take a few trauma shifts a month? Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

[A-Stark]

I imagine it varies a lot; there aren't likely many centres where one can be a full-time trauma surgeon per se (depending on the type of trauma - you'd be looking at one of general, ortho, plastics, or neuro). One of the general surgeons combines a mostly acute care surgical practice with ICU. He takes general surgery, trauma, and ICU call for about 1 in 3. I think that's nuts, but he does have 8 weeks off a year and - according to one of my preceptors - a "very nice" lifestyle (not sure what that means coming from another surgeon).

 

I don't know exactly how the three call schedules work.

[Satsuma]

Where I am I think the trauma team leaders are pretty much all gen surg. And they then take call" and get called in when there is a trauma. No idea what the schedule is, but it wouldn`t be all that demanding since you wouldn`t necessarily have a trauma on every call.

 

However, the trauma team consists of members from anesthesia, gen surg, ortho and trauma. So when a multisystem trauma comes in someone from each of these services gets automatically paged.

 

If another specialty is required eg. ENT, plastics, neurosurg, thoracics etc. as determined primary/secondary survey then they are paged.

 

So, each respective specialty would be doing the surgeries relevant to their specialty.

 

If you were gen surg...then things like liver lacs, bowel perforations etc.

 

So you don`t need to be a "trauma surgeon" to be involved with traumas.

 

And like already said, it would be hard to work solely doing traumas. There just aren`t enough traumas....and also each trauma may need a different et of specialties.

 

A multisystem trauma will get admitted to the trauma service (which as I mentionned, I am pretty sure where I am is all gen surgeons). But the other specialties involved (ortho, neurosurg etc) still follow the pt for their specific issues. And the trauma team kind of coordinates all these services and discharge planning etc. So the general surgeons where I am that cover trauma, have inpatients to follow on both the general surgery service and the trauma service.

 

If it is only a single system...eg all ortho, then they would just be admitted to ortho, even though it was a traumatic injury.

 

Hope that is helpful

[svp2k5]

The way that the trauma services typically work are as follows:

 

Typically the trauma service operates with Trauma Staff, Trauma team leaders and the residents. The "trauma service" is often activated by either the TTL or the Emerg staff/triage when a patient comes in with obvious multi system trauma, or a mechanism that would be concerning for such (i.e. high speed motor vehicle crashes, falls, shootings, stabbings, etc.)

 

The "Trauma Staff" is the admitting physician for any multisystem trauma. From my experience this is a general surgery consultant with training in trauma, or an Emerg Staff. The Trauma staff overseas the in patient care of the patient and coodinates the other services for that care (i.e. ortho/neuro surg, gen surg, etc.). They trauma staff does not typically see the patient on arrival or operate on the patient (unless they are doing so in another capacity --> i.e. if they were on for general surgery)

 

The Trauma Team leader is typically a general surgeon, an emerg physician and occasionally an intensivist. They typically cover TTL call for either 12 hours at a time or 24 hours at a time. They are the one that gets called by EMS/referring institutions to see if the trauma service should be activated. They are directly responsible for the care of the patient as they come into the hospital. They are responsible for stabilizing the patient, primary/secondary surveys, organizing imaging and consulting the most applicable services. There are times when the TTL on for the night is the same person as the Trauma staff.

 

In terms of extra training, trauma team leader does not usually have extra training. Typically this has been a general surgeon with interest in trauma or an emerg physician. Trauma staff often have training in trauma or ICU.

 

Operating on traumas is done by the consultant on for that service. Abdo injuries = gen surg, chest = thoracics, bones = ortho, etc.

 

The best way to be involved with traumas is to go through either general surgery or emerg. The advantage of the gen surg route is that you actually do the interventions.

[tuss]

There is a surgical subspecialty training in trauma. Most larger cities have a "trauma service" that is run by "trauma surgeons" (eg Toronto's Sunnybrook, Calgary's Foothills Hospital, Vancouver General, etc.). Smaller places don't have such a service.

 

Most trauma surgeons do a week of call at a time, running the trauma ward, as Trauma Team Leader, and operating on any traumas (only the chest and abdomen, orthopedic injuries would be managed by ortho, etc.). Most do 1 in 4 weeks on call for trauma. Many trauma surgeons combine trauma with ICU and do a week of ICU call separate from their week of trauma. The rest of the time they do general surgery (usually hernias, gallbladders, and other small general surgery like cases).

 

I'm not sure the lifestyle is any better or worse that other subspecialties. It's probably easier to take vacation, but for the weeks they are covering the trauma service it would be non-stop busy. I prefer my lifestyle as a general surgeon, but to each his own...

[artistintheambulance]

How exactly does that work when a surgeon splits their time between trauma/gen surg and ICU? To be more specific, would a general surgeon have to do a fellowship in intensive care medicine to be able to work in the ICU or do their ICU responsibilities fall primarily under only post-op patients?

[Lactic Folly]

They would do an ICU fellowship, and when on ICU, would be responsible for all the patients in the unit.

[roggerham]

The lifestyle of Trauma Surgeon is quite good but they have many uncertainities in their life they don't know when an emergency call come to him and they have to ran leaving everything behind.

[adumpol]

The specialties dealing with emergency medicine and emergency surgery are in need for a new roadmap. While the medical and surgical management of emergency conditions very often go hand-in-hand, issues relating to emergency and trauma surgery have particular concerns, which are global in magnitude.

[Doc2Law]

If you don't want to have more unpredictable and annoying working hours than other Specialties, avoid Surgery at all costs.