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Mackenzie Montroy

Ms. Amanda Tibbits

Language arts 12

8 March 2019

Trauma Surgeon

Trauma surgery is interesting to me because a lot of times you get to be the first one on the

scene. One of the reasons i find it particularly interesting is because when i was little i had really

bad asthma and was often admitted to the hospital. One of the times i had to use the ambulance

to transport me to the hospital because my lung has collapsed the first person that i had talked to

was a trauma surgeon. this was a moment that i would remember for the rest of my life.

Saving a life is one thing that you only get to do once in a lifetime in an average daily life.

However as a trauma surgeon you get to do this everyday. You learn about the human body and

all of the things that happen in it. As a trauma surgeon you will get to work first hand with with

nurses and anesthesiologist to save a humans life. In this paper i will be discussing the pros and

cons of being a trauma surgeon from the thrill to saving a life to the stress and emotional damage

it can do to one person. I will be discussing the wages and the hours that you’ll experience as a

trauma surgeon as well.

According to Waydhas, Christian one of the biggest problems that students who are studying to

become a trauma surgeon are faced with is taking what they learn in class an applying it to a real

life situation. One of the things that they are now trying to do is invent more real life scenarios

for students to practice on. This will be beneficial because it will test the students ability to act as
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they would in a real life situation. The reason that this is so important is because many students

are performing worse when they leave class even the ones who were getting the highest scores.

The reason for this is simply that when they are unable to get hands on practice they are unable

to practice for when they will need to do the procedures on actual people.

Bedside manners are something that is important in a trauma surgeon career. One of the things

that people do subconsciously is they will warp their face in order to show an emotion without

knowing that they are doing. When you are working with people who have been in major

accidents they are going to look injured there may be blood broken bones and other things that

will make you want to warp your face into that sympathy ow for someone. Waydhas, Christian

says this can make the patient panic or feel unsafe. Learning these things are something that you

can not learn from reading a book this is something that is going to take practice.

One reason that we need to learn more by doing real life scenarios is that those who learn from

textbooks often refer back to old way or basic procedures and don't know how to solve larger

problems.According to Waydhas, Christian this is because when you only learn one thing and

don't have room to use your own imagination and think outside the textbook when faced with a

problem they are always going to refer back to the books. Although having knowledge from a

credible textbook is great and of course you can not learn everything just by doing as you should

have a good knowledge from a textbook before ever actually working on a real patient. This just

allows a student who is learning to start being dependent on their actual knowledge of the body

and not just the one sentence from the book.

Being in the medical field means that you’re constantly being faced with new equipment and

new ways to perform the same surgeries. This is done because we are going to continuously look
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for ways to make surgery less invasive to create shorter healing period as possible. According to

Elfering, Achim This can also be a major challenge of the career because you are constantly on

your toes there is no time to sit back and relax. You have to be on top of your game at all times

up to date everyday. This is so important in the medical field because there is always a way to do

something better or efficient and as a surgeon your job is to make the patient better with the least

amount of damage to them as possible.

Being in surgery one of the things that is often overlooked is the stress that is placed on the

surgeon. Being able to see the horrible things that can happen to a person can put a lot of

emotional stress on a surgeon Soleimanpour, Hassan You really have to have a strong gut as they

would say. One thing with being a trauma surgeon specifically is that you are going to be faced

with several of the more serious cases such as bomb victims as well as car crashes and etc. these

can be hard to see many times people are lost in trauma surgery because of the severity of the

injuries.

Although stress can be a major problem in trauma surgery with the right training and therapy this

can be avoided. It may not seem like a doctor would need therapy to talk about the things they

deal with but just like any other person they need a way to cope with their everyday problems.

Many trauma surgeons have a therapist in which they can confide in. IT's not always about

having tough love and not caring about your patients.Soleimanpour, Hassan says It is common

for surgeons to grieve the loss of patients and to feel guilt and sorrow feelings after a death.

One of the perks of being a trauma surgeon is the pay. Because the work is so hard and it takes a

lot of skill and education to do this a trauma surgeon can make anywhere from 251,000 to
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354,000 a year. This is very large amount of money however it does take a long time to acquire

the education and superiority to get to that level.

Medicine is constantly evolving that why the medical field is so sought after when people are

looking for a job. However the time it takes to become part of the fields that make the most

money add up. Just like any other doctor to become a trauma surgeon you’ll have to go to school

for a minimum of four years and earn a doctorate in medicine A.K.A you're M.D. some of the

classes that you can take that are more specific for trauma surgery are biology, anatomy,

chemistry and physics. One of the things that you will also have to do to become a surgeon that

can work independently is you will have to complete your surgical residency.

According to the american college of surgeons surgical residency is when a group of students

will study and work beneath an attending who slowly and progressively teach them how to

perform surgeries on their own by assisting them in the OR. this is critically important for

learning students because they are going to need as much practice as they can get before you set

them free. Having someone who knows what they are doing and can show them exactly how

things are done a student will be able to learn quickly and correctly.

A struggle that many who work as trauma surgeons deal with is the long hours. A trauma

surgeon will typically work 50-60 hours per week american college of surgeons. Where as most

jobs full time is 40 hours a week. This can be physically exhausting on the human body. The

hours are done like this because they need to be prepared at all times for a large casualty where

they will need to stay awake for long periods of time.

According to study.com trauma surgery seems like it would always be full of action many of the

things that a trauma surgeon is quite routinely done. Many of the cases that come into trauma
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surgery are simple procedures for instance a appendectomy when the appendix burst which yes

does cause the patient a lot of pain but a trauma surgeon may see four or five of these a week and

knows exactly how to handle these things. In opposition when there is a accident in which a

patient is rushed into the er they will use their education and their quick thinking skills to find a

way to save the patient.

One important thing i learned from this research is trauma surgery does not only work on

emergency patients. This is important to me because that means that i will be able to work with

different varieties of cases. I am looking forward to learning the ways of how to compose myself

as a surgeon. There are many things however that i did not cover in this research that i will be

further studying. Such as military involvement in trauma surgery.

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Works Cited

american college or surgeons. “How Many Years of Postgraduate Training Do Surgical

Residents Undergo?” ​American College of Surgeons​,
www.facs.org/education/resources/medical-students/faq/training.

Salary.com. “Salary for Surgeon - Trauma.” ​Hyperbaric Technician Salaries by Education,

Experience, Location and More - Salary.com​, Salary.com,
www1.salary.com/Surgeon-Trauma-Salary.html.
Soleimanpour, Hassan, et al. “An Analytical Comparison of the Opinions of Physicians Working
in Emergency and Trauma Surgery Departments at Tabriz and Vienna Medical
Universities Regarding Family Presence during Resuscitation.” ​PLoS ONE,​ vol. 10, no.
4, Apr. 2015, pp. 1–8. ​EBSCOhost​, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0123765.

“Trauma Surgeon: Job Description & Career Requirements.” ​Study.com​, Study.com,

study.com/articles/Trauma_Surgeon_Job_Description_and_Requirements_for_Starting_a
_Career_in_Trauma_Surgery.html.

Turner, CLS, and AER Young. “Fluid Therapy in Paediatric Trauma.” ​Trauma,​ vol. 4, no. 3,
July 2002, p. 169. ​EBSCOhost,​ doi:10.1191/1460408602ta238oa.

Waydhas, Christian, et al. “Improved Student Preparation from Implementing Active Learning
Sessions and a Standardized Curriculum in the Surgical Examination Course.” ​Medical
Teacher​, vol. 26, no. 7, Nov. 2004, pp. 621–624. ​EBSCOhost​,
doi:10.1080/01421590400019526.