Psychological Trauma and the Trauma Surgeon
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Psychological Trauma and the Trauma Surgeon Raymond B. Flannery 1,2,3 Accepted: 15 November 2020/ # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract
Research has demonstrated that first responders may develop psychological trauma/ posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the performance of their duties. Often overlooked in these studies of police, firefighters, and paramedics is an additional group of providers in this health care delivery system: the trauma surgeons, who receive the victims transported by the first responders. Although limited in scope, the research literature does identify the presence of PTSD in trauma surgeons. These studies have repeatedly cited the need for further information about psychological trauma for trauma surgeons. This paper addresses that need with a brief overview of psychological trauma, where surgeons may encounter victims, and how to cope with its aftermath. Keywords Psychological trauma . Posttraumatic stress disorder . Trauma surgeon . Victims Research has documented the potential risk for developing psychological trauma in first responders in the performance of their professional duties [1–5]. This risk is a worldwide occupational hazard [6, 7]. Typically, the subjects in these studies have been police, firefighters, and paramedics. However, there is another group of professionals in this health care delivery system team that has received much less attention: the receiving trauma surgeons who are located in receiving hospital surgical centers and, at times, onsite at the critical incidents themselves. First responders bring the victims of human-perpetrated violence and natural and man-made disasters to hospital emergency rooms for trauma surgeons for initial evaluation, stabilization, surgical procedures, and post-surgical recovery. Since the bodies of the victims may traumatize the first responders onsite, it is not unreasonable to assume that these same injured victims may traumatize the receiving trauma surgeons as well. In fact, there is preliminary research that
* Raymond B. Flannery [email protected]
1
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
2
The University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA
3
Department of Psychiatry, Cambridge Health Alliance, 1493 Cambridge street, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Psychiatric Quarterly
documents the presence of untreated posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in surgeons [8–17]. Collectively, these papers did not discuss psychological traumatic stress among the various other types of stressors that were reviewed and they cited the need for further education on the nature and impact of psychological trauma on trauma surgeons and their residents. There appears to be no paper for trauma surgeons that presents a brief overview of psychological trauma, its impact on surgeons, and how to cope with its aftermath. The purpose of this paper is to address this need. A more detailed presentation is available elsewhere for the interested reader [18].
Psychological Trauma: A Brief Ove
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