Resident Roles and Responsibilities on Trauma

Welcome to Cook County Trauma!

●        You will learn a lot during this rotation, but you will also be expected to put in your fair share to take care of patients.  We all work as a team to get the work done.

●        You will quickly learn that everything here is very protocol-driven.  It is a steep learning curve, but you'll soon get the hang of how to present and work up patients.

●        Listen to the nurses and help them whenever possible, they know this system very well and can help you a great deal.

Schedule (PG1-3):

●        6am: day team comes in, gets signout on overnight events from night team, then writes the notes (SOAP format strictly, see below).  It is the night team’s duty to write the vital signs in presentation format onto the notes as a skeleton for the day team.  The day person will write the note and present on rounds.  

●        8am: intake in the conference room

●        9am: review all back room films (you should have seen your patients' XRs and be prepared to deliver a "one-liner" explaining who your patient is, then read the XR to the group.

                Round in obs/ICU/floor/front room

●        9:30am: Night team leaves, but makes sure to update the day team of any new developments since the 6am signout.

●        11am: Get work on inpatients (routine orders, call consults, any imaging, pull tubes, put in lines, change VACs, etc)

●        Early afternoon: sign out your inpatients to the back room resident (tell them what you've done and what is still pending because they will be paged on your patients, and you will be busy in the front room).  Feel free to check up on your patients and follow up with consult services etc during the rest of the day, but still be sure to relay ALL updates to the back room resident.

●        7:30pm: Night team arrives and gets sign out from day team.  If there is time, and the senior is not in the OR, the senior/backroom should run the whole list with everyone so nothing gets missed.

●        8 pm: day team leaves

●        9pm: Tie up loose ends not finished during days

●        24/7 see front room patients.

GOOD SIGNOUT SAVES LIVES!!!  Don't leave out any details, go through each patient in a systematic fashion.

Schedule (PG4-5):

• 8 am:  arrive, attend morning report and rounds – please be prepared to lead/contribute to the flow of rounds
• Oversee all activity in front room/back room/ obs/floor, etc. – assist junior residents as needed
• 730 pm: run the list with juniors to ensure a smooth transition
• 8 am – 12 noon post-call – assist with morning report, rounds, patient dispo
• On Thursday, pre-call surgery chief does first elective case so that on-call chief can round, remainder of cases are done by on-call chief
• One day off per week- Friday, Saturday or Sunday

Schedule (SICU fellow):

• 8 am: attend morning report and rounds – take a lead role in ICU rounds
• During the day, please oversee and assist junior residents with care of ICU patients – assist with ICU procedures
• When on call overnight, assist back room resident with all patient care
• May observe in OR when on call only if nothing is happening in ICU

Thanks to Marie Ziesat, MD for putting together this mini-orientation.