Yes, cooldreams, most gs's are trained to handle many emergency situations. In most residency programs they get tons of trauma and ICU experience, meaning they handle tons of emergent situations. Throughout the hospital, they are the ones called to put in emergent central lines, chest tubes, cric someone who needs an airway emergently, stop any kind of bleeding, etc.
If there's one classic characteristic of a general surgeon it's that they have a hard time standing by and watching something happen without getting their hands in there to help. As an intern I arrived at medical codes in the hosptial and jumped right in to help, while some of the medicine interns sat on the sidelines watching their senior residents or staff. If anesthesia or EM are not around, they'll grab a tube and intubate if a patient needs it. Surgeons just aren't affraid to step up and help out in any situation.
To answer your cooldream's other question, EP's do some procedures, yes. But in most residency programs, surgeons will generally be more comfortable with most any of these basic procedures by the end of their 1st 3 years than any EM resident in 3 years b/c they've done more - by the fact that they see mostly surgery patients who get procedures vs. EM who sees all patients AND by the fact that surgery residents work 80 hours a week vs. 60 or so at many EM programs. So yes, EP's do procedures, but if you ask me who I'd prefer to put a line, chest tube, or any needle or knife into my family members - a surgeon would be MUCH preffered over an EP.
