Gender‐specific Issues in Traumatic Injury and Resuscitation: Consensus‐based Recommendations for Future Research

Traumatic injury remains an unacceptably high contributor to morbidity and mortality rates across the United States. Gender‐specific research in trauma and emergency resuscitation has become a rising priority. In concert with the 2014 Academic Emergency Medicine consensus conference “Gender‐specific Research in Emergency Care: Investigate, Understand, and Translate How Gender Affects Patient Outcomes,” a consensus‐building group consisting of experts in emergency medicine, critical care, traumatology, anesthesiology, and public health convened to generate research recommendations and priority questions to be answered and thus move the field forward. Nominal group technique was used for the consensus‐building process and a combination of face‐to‐face meetings, monthly conference calls, e‐mail discussions, and preconference surveys were used to refine the research questions. The resulting research agenda focuses on opportunities to improve patient outcomes by expanding research in sex‐ and gender‐specific emergency care in the field of traumatic injury and resuscitation.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/110065/1/acem12536.pd

Collaboration and Decision-Making on Trauma Teams: A Survey Assessment

Introduction: Leadership, communication, and collaboration are important in well-managed trauma resuscitations. We surveyed resuscitation team members (attendings, fellows, residents, and nurses) in a large urban trauma center regarding their impressions of collaboration among team members and their satisfaction with patient care decisions.Methods: The Collaboration and Satisfaction About Care Decisions in Trauma (CSACD.T) survey was administered to members of ad hoc trauma teams immediately after resuscitations. Survey respondents self-reported their demographic characteristics; the CSACD.T scores were then compared by gender, occupation, self-identified leader role, and level of training.Results: The study population consisted of 281 respondents from 52 teams; 111 (39.5%) were female, 207 (73.7%) were self-reported White, 78 (27.8%) were nurses, and 140 (49.8%) were physicians. Of the 140 physician respondents, 38 (27.1%) were female, representing 13.5% of the total surveyed population. Nine of the 52 teams had a female leader. Men, physicians (vs nurses), fellows (vs attendings), and self-identified leaders trended toward higher satisfaction across all questions of the CSACD.T. In addition to the comparison groups mentioned, women and general team members (vs non-leaders) gave lower scores.Conclusion: Female residents, nurses, general team members, and attendings gave lower CSACD.T scores in this study. Identification of nuances and underlying causes of lower scores from female members of trauma teams is an important next step. Gender-specific training may be necessary to change negative team dynamics in ad hoc trauma teams