Trauma surgical educational opportunities in Canada: a week in the life of a trauma service

BACKGROUND: Trauma educational opportunities for general surgery residents in Canada are uncharacterized. We aimed to characterize these opportunities for and identify factors associated with such opportunities. METHODS: We performed a prospective cross-sectional study characterizing trauma educational opportunities within Canadian trauma programs. Data were collected during 1 summer week and 1 winter week. We summarized educational opportunities by trauma site and season and used multivariable modelling to evaluate factors associated with increased likelihood of procedure opportunities. RESULTS: Nine academic trauma centres participated. Most consults (93.9%) and trauma team activations (TTAs) (72.3%) were for blunt injuries, and most presentations were during the summer (67.2% TTAs + consults, 69.3% TTAs). Trauma services cared for a median of 14 (interquartile range [IQR] 10-20) inpatients, 4 (IQR 1-6) patients in the intensive care unit, and 0 (IQR 0-2) patients admitted to another service but subsequently followed by a trauma physician (i.e., consulting patients), which varied across hospitals (p < 0.001). Consult, TTA, nonoperative, and operative procedure volumes varied across sites. The most common operative procedures were laparotomies (36.4%), with 1.33 laparotomies per week per site. For nonlaparotomy operations, the maximum volume was 6 over 2 weeks. More operations occurred during summer (74.2%) than winter. Multivariable modelling determined that penetrating mechanisms (odds ratio [OR] 1.87, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.11-3.15) and TTAs with a trauma surgeon present (OR 2.37, 95% CI 1.59-3.54) were associated with increased likelihood of procedures. CONCLUSION: Trauma educational opportunities remain heterogeneous across Canada. Higher volumes of patients with trauma were seen during the summer. Penetrating mechanism and TTAs with a trauma surgeon present appear to increase opportunities to perform procedures. Our results can inform general surgery training programs to optimize resident trauma training in Canada.