The Team

As many of my predecessors have told me, the people you work with can be your saving grace.  There are three of us here in the general/ trauma surgery rotation which means we are technically on call every third night.  So on those nights we respond to trauma calls and general surgery consults (things like appendicitis, cholecystitis, etc.)   Having said that, on the nights in between, we are primary and secondary back-up, so that if there are multiple critically ill patients we are involved even if we aren't the "on-call" surgeon (and the "Czar" who coordinates the overall clinical effort is involved with just about everything).  In addition to the general surgeons, there are several surgical sub-specialists as well as internists, pediatricians and family physicians here.  One of the nice things about being here is that we are all in it together, so everyone is willing to pitch in and help out, be it in the OR, the ER, or in just about any other way.