Do Emergency Physicians Perform Surgery?

[livevibrantly]

I'm asking out of curiosity- sorry if it seems like a simple question! (I'm a high school student, aspiring to work in the emergency room.)

Do emergency physicians perform surgery? I've found myself to be quite squeamish around gore, (not blood or vomit or anything, just the idea of cutting someone open and having to cut and move things around inside a living persons body), so I'm really hoping I can pursue a EP career without having to cut into people on a day to day basis.

I know there's some invasive work, (like putting in chest tubes, etc.), but I feel like that's something I could wrap my head around and get used to after putting in the work and class time.

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[OnlyOneZlatan]

Just waiting for the cruel SDNers to come thru

 

[BoardingDoc]

I'm asking out of curiosity- sorry if it seems like a simple question! (I'm a high school student, aspiring to work in the emergency room.)

Do emergency physicians perform surgery? I've found myself to be quite squeamish around gore, (not blood or vomit or anything, just the idea of cutting someone open and having to cut and move things around inside a living persons body), so I'm really hoping I can pursue a EP career without having to cut into people on a day to day basis.

I know there's some invasive work, (like putting in chest tubes, etc.), but I feel like that's something I could wrap my head around and get used to after putting in the work and class time.

Specialties that perform surgery (besides the obvious e.g. any specialty with the word "surgery" in the name): ENT, OB/Gyn, Urology, Ophtho.

An ED doc will extremely rarely be called upon to perform what you're thinking of as a surgical procedure. E.g. peri-mortem C-sections and thoracotomies. You will be called upon to do procedures quite frequently, e.g. chest tubes, central line placement, intubation, lumbar punctures, laceration repairs etc etc etc.

 

[Darth Doc]

squeamish around gore, (not blood or vomit or anything, just the idea of cutting someone open and having to cut and move things around inside a living persons body)

What about body parts (intestines) sticking out? brain outside of the skull?

You might be better off - if you're thinking about medicine - to go to medical school with an open mind. Use your medical school (and pre-med shadowing opportunities) to see multiple medical specialties and don't worry about deciding now what specialty you want to be in. I had multiple classmates who changed their mind about specialties in years 3 and 4 of medical school.

 

[Stagg737]

I think it's a fair question for a high schooler.

Boarding doc is right, there are plenty of procedures but not really "surgeries". Especially if there's trauma surgeons on staff at the hospital, then ED docs will typically just help stabilize the major traumas until the surgeons get there and take the patients to the OR. That being said, you may have to deal with amputations and serious traumas at times where you do have to dig into their bodies to stop a bleed. The best way to find this out would be to volunteer in the ED or shadow an ED physician and see some of it firsthand. You won't get to actually do much, but you may at least get to see what the environment is like and if you can handle it. If not, there's plenty of other fields in medicine that are great and most people change their minds about what field they want to enter during med school anyway.

 

[BAM!]

Just waiting for the cruel SDNers to come thru

chew with your mouth shut!

 

[It's lupus!]

I agree with everyone else. Way too early to know what you want in medicine. After you spend time working/shadowing/clinicals you'll have a much better sense of what you like. Prime example for me is I think surgery is cool, but not being able to scratch myself or put my hands by my side for long periods of time makes me feel miserable regardless how cool the surgery is I can't put up with that in my day to day.

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[Garurumon]

Echoing Boardingdoc: at the ED where I work, common procedures EM physicians do (and that I had to write up notes for) include laceration repairs, incision and drainage (I&Ds), central line placements, intubations, and reducing dislocations or closed fractures. Lac repair seems to be the most common. All are hardly gore-exposing as OP might be thinking of. Any more emergent injuries and major trauma, like internal bleeding, ruptured organs, or open fractures, are left up to the surgeons.

OP, since you're still pretty early in the game, test the waters with shadowing and volunteering, as others have said. If you're still interested and want to dip your feet in further into EM, I recommend picking up work as an ER scribe. 🙂

 

[gutonc]

I agree with everyone else. Way too early to know what you want in medicine life.

Fixed that for you.

 

[It's lupus!]

Fixed that for you.

I feel like there should be an and/or in there lol

Sent from my Pixel XL using SDN mobile

 

[anbuitachi]

I'm asking out of curiosity- sorry if it seems like a simple question! (I'm a high school student, aspiring to work in the emergency room.)

Do emergency physicians perform surgery? I've found myself to be quite squeamish around gore, (not blood or vomit or anything, just the idea of cutting someone open and having to cut and move things around inside a living persons body), so I'm really hoping I can pursue a EP career without having to cut into people on a day to day basis.

I know there's some invasive work, (like putting in chest tubes, etc.), but I feel like that's something I could wrap my head around and get used to after putting in the work and class time.

agree with what everyone else said. it is way too early for you. when i started college, the pre med track had 1000 kids. by the end only 250 applied to med school. in med school almost everyone changed their mind in what they want to do. and you have to apply to get into what you want as well. so it's way too early for you

but if above posters sound pretty spot on. you have to do small cuts but nothing major.

 

[livevibrantly]

Thank you all for your replies! I think with time, focus on material, and in-person experience, completing the minor procedures/small incisions will become bearable. And I do agree that it is way too early for me to pick a field I want to go into; I'm not even out of HS yet!

 

[theseeker4]

Thank you all for your replies! I think with time, focus on material, and in-person experience, completing the minor procedures/small incisions will become bearable. And I do agree that it is way too early for me to pick a field I want to go into; I'm not even out of HS yet!

One thing that definitely happens is you become desensitized to things with exposure. Before I was in medical school, I would wince and had to look away from any broken bone, even closed injury, just any abnormal angle to a limb would make me squeemish. Now, I am not even through residency yet and I have no trouble assessing a fracture, even an open fracture, and reduce it without any negative reaction whatsoever. If you want to do emergency medicine, when you get to that point in medical school, your rotations on OBGYN and surgery will get you used to seeing and interacting with major wounds/surgeries to the point that you won't have any problems.

Don't worry too much about this right now, just keep your grades up, from now and for forever, as that is the only thing you need to worry about at this stage until you are in medical school.

 

[livevibrantly]

One thing that definitely happens is you become desensitized to things with exposure. Before I was in medical school, I would wince and had to look away from any broken bone, even closed injury, just any abnormal angle to a limb would make me squeemish. Now, I am not even through residency yet and I have no trouble assessing a fracture, even an open fracture, and reduce it without any negative reaction whatsoever. If you want to do emergency medicine, when you get to that point in medical school, your rotations on OBGYN and surgery will get you used to seeing and interacting with major wounds/surgeries to the point that you won't have any problems.

Don't worry too much about this right now, just keep your grades up, from now and for forever, as that is the only thing you need to worry about at this stage until you are in medical school.

Yeah, I agree 100% about the whole desensitization with exposure- thank you for giving me the words to describe what I hope happens! 😉
And in the end, if I can't really handle the daily gore, injuries, and all other 'gross' things that come with the job, there's plenty of other medical options for me to look to.

 

[BAM!]

Yeah, I agree 100% about the whole desensitization with exposure- thank you for giving me the words to describe what I hope happens! 😉
And in the end, if I can't really handle the daily gore, injuries, and all other 'gross' things that come with the job, there's plenty of other medical options for me to look to.

Desensitization isn't necessarily a good thing. It's not just the blood and gore. I think we Emergency docs all become desensitized to humanity and sympathy as a side effect of the job. Sometimes I wonder if I can get my premed personality back.

 

[fahimaz7]

I don't always cut people, but when I do I use a scalpel.

 

[Biza]

Specialties that perform surgery (besides the obvious e.g. any specialty with the word "surgery" in the name): ENT, OB/Gyn, Urology, Ophtho.

An ED doc will extremely rarely be called upon to perform what you're thinking of as a surgical procedure. E.g. peri-mortem C-sections and thoracotomies. You will be called upon to do procedures quite frequently, e.g. chest tubes, central line placement, intubation, lumbar punctures, laceration repairs etc etc etc.

Spot on! ED docs deal with plenty of trauma so if blood or other body fluids/pieces/parts make you feel squeamish Emergency might not be for you. But, I will say that it can be an extremely rewarding career and that in the heat of the moment whether it be in a surgical field or Emergency you don't really notice any of that. You just do what you have to do.

 

[Old_Mil]

Do emergency physicians perform surgery?

No.

I've found myself to be quite squeamish around gore, (not blood or vomit or anything, just the idea of cutting someone open and having to cut and move things around inside a living persons body), so I'm really hoping I can pursue a EP career without having to cut into people on a day to day basis.

I know there's some invasive work, (like putting in chest tubes, etc.), but I feel like that's something I could wrap my head around and get used to after putting in the work and class time.

You still have to get through anatomy lab, your surgery rotation, and residency.

It doesn't sound to me like health care is the right field for you.

You should count your blessings. Most pre-meds don't have such a built in filter to prevent them from making self-destructive life choices.