Trauma meetings

Trauma Meeting

Trauma meetings may look daunting, but don't be afraid. (we are all very friendly!)

Trauma meetings are held everyday at 8am at the Education centre (Level -2). The purpose is to discuss all patients reviewed during the Take & discuss all patients awaiting emergency operations (the Trauma Board). All juniors are expected to attend and you should be on time! (late comers are always noted). Trauma meetings are great learning opportunities to see what cases we tend to admit, how they are managed acutely and their surgical plans). Sometimes you will be asked questions on some basic topics, but we won’t expect you to know much, if anything (know the difference between intra and extracapsular neck of femur fractures and you’re ahead of the game).

During the meeting, one the junior doctors needs to take the responsibility to "drive". (i.e. put up the relevant X-ray / CT images etc whilst the case is being presented). This is not difficult and is a key skill to learn how to show relevant imaging. If you haven't use the PACs system before, we will show you how to navigate the images. If the fracture has been manipulated, we tend to like to the fracture before, then after the reduction. For CT or MRI, it can be tricky to know exactly what slice to display at the meeting,(we can help with that, but knowing the basics of coronal/sagittal / axial, T1, T2 etc will help).

Even though the oncall SpRs is present, it is the responsibility of the SHO (night & previous day on-call) to present all the patients that have been reviewed / admitted in A&E. Presenting at the trauma meeting is a key skill that should be learnt during your placement. (watch how some SpR present and learn from them)

How to present:

Be systematic and concise:

- Patients name & age

- Source of referral (ie A&E)

- Presenting complaint & brief history (including mechanism of injury)

- Relevant past medical history (e.g. cancers, anticoagulation, PPM, infections etc)

- SOCIAL HISTORY (living situation, care package / independence, mobility status, smoker?)

- Diagnosis & acute management

Presenting fractures:

- What bone is it

- Where within the bone the fracture is

- What type of fracture it is (transverse, spiral, avulsion etc)

- Displaced / Undisplaced

- Open / Closed

- Limb neurovascular status

- If you want to show off – fracture classification (ie Garden / Salter-Harris)