Trauma surgery
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Trauma surgeons practice the last to be created subspecialty of general surgery. Comfortable at operating on most body parts and cavities, trauma surgeons carry on the tradition of military surgeons as depicted in the novel M*A*S*H. Trauma surgeons have a high success rate regarding the sickest of patients who have sustained life and limb-threatening injuries. Trauma surgeons have become specialists in Surgical Critical Care, burns, and Emergency Surgery, and have, in the process, created the new specialty of Acute Care Surgery. Some trauma surgeons have also become involved in research and education through specialty societies such as the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma (EAST).
In many hospitals throughout the United States and Britain, trauma surgeons primarily stabilize patients and then transfer the patient to the appropriate department. For instance, a patient presenting to the emergency room with peripheral nervous system trauma would preferably be treated by a neurosurgeon. Likewise, patients with musculoskeletal problems would be treated by an orthopedic surgeon, oral/maxillofacial trauma by a maxillofacial surgeon, and heart trauma by a cardiovascular surgeon. As trauma surgery has increasingly become inoperative in nature, its popularity among medical students has fallen drastically. Trauma surgeons make life and death choices everyday.
[edit] Further reading
- American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, a website dedicated to the advancement of knowledge in treating and preventing traumatic injuries.
- AO Surgery Reference
