Category: Trauma Systems

We’re posting this as a shout out to Andrew Petrosoniak and Chris Hicks from Advanced Performance, and Mark Bonta from Ditch The Labcoat podcast. This is a fantastic interview with some really interesting insights on trauma team leadership from a couple of the world leaders in this space.

It’s reassuring to hear that much of what we teach on ETM (task specific role allocation, labels, pre-brief, synthesis, communication) is reflected in their practice.

But the second half of this episode on ergonomics and design is where the gold is. Andrew and Chris talk in detail about the interplay between self, team, environment and the system as key elements of trauma reception and resuscitation. You can train the team and up-skill in human factors all you like, but if the trauma bay is laid out poorly, you can’t find what you need, or your internal systems are not geared toward getting the patient where they need to be in a timely fashion, then your team will perform poorly. On the flipside, if you design your workspace properly, many of the frustrations and barriers that lead to poor team performance will evaporate and performance will improve.

This episode will have you asking yourself “why do we do trauma the way we do?” And “why aren’t we doing it like they do?”

Highly recommended to anyone who treats trauma patients. For anyone considering redesigning their clinical workspace, or if you are lucky enough to be involved in a new ED design, you need to listen to this!  We can only hope that the principles they discuss in this episode become the norm for ED resus/trauma team, environment and system design in the future.

5 stars.

Andy Buck
ETM Course Director.

And by the way, when you’re done with that episode, check out Andrew speaking to Erik Hein! Another great interview.