sub-dural

We have a dedicated trauma team working every night (level I trauma center) that includes 6-8 scrubs/RNs. We have about 5 people on call every night as well. A general training concept for trauma work is focused on vascular, neuro, and general surgery. If you can do those services and know them well you can adapt fairly well to trauma work. In my experience, "true" pedi trauma comes in only a few times a month. Lap appy's are pretty normal during the night as well as broken elbows and things. Even though you have a new crew coming through a perio-operative program, they will in no way be able to do trauma for a while. Trauma requires much experience. So you may in fact end up being reallocated or something. Trauma OR and offshifts are among my favorite. We do have a separate call for a cardiac scrub nurse that is separate from the rest of the call people.

What service do you work for? (if your OR is set up that way).. In my experience, years, there are at minimum 2 nasty surgeons per service. It doesn't matter if you are new or a veteran in the OR, if they are nasty and mean -- you give it right back to them. And if it is a surgeon in your specific service and it wears you down, you can probably easily switch to a different service. Again, depends on how large your OR is. Ours is very large. I think the only complaints that would be valid in our OR relates to sexual or racial slurs. Big trouble for that. But having the eff word yelled at you constantly is considered normal for some surgeons.