Coordinating Expertise: Defining the Role of the Modern Trauma Specialist

The nature of the ideal trauma specialist has evolved as a consequence of the heterogeneity and complexity of trauma patients. Treatment of the injured patient now is often minimally-invasive or non-operative and combines challenges such as complex medical comorbidities, timing of anticoagulation and polypharmacy, not infrequently overlaid by social vulnerability, substance misuse and poor mental health. Historically it may have been true that a single specialty training programme could equip a clinician with all the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to deliver optimal trauma care. Today, best trauma specialists optimise patient outcomes by prioritising the right treatments, by the right teams, at the right time. A trauma specialist does not need to do everything; rather they must ensure that everything that is important is done. A good trauma specialist is less a virtuoso and more an effective conductor of the trauma orchestra.