There is a moment that regularly occurs in the life of a clinician working at a major trauma service – where a rotating registrar, a keen sponge – appears, and a discussion about learning goals for the rotation is had. Its always about trauma, I’m here to learn procedures, intercostal catheter insertion, thoracotomies etc etc and if there is a trauma call, I’d love to be involved. But when I point to an older woman in the corner who has fallen from standing height, suggesting that perhaps we start our trauma education there, there are looks of confusion, annoyance even. This patient doesn’t fit their expectation of what trauma physician needs to learn. But a trauma physician’s paradigm, must evolve.
