Grant Trauma Rotation
Door Codes as of 8/2026
1. Lac Cart in ED (Yellow): 0911
2. Main Supply Room in ED: 531
3. Resident Room on 3rd Floor: 147
4. 2nd floor research room (for morning report): 273
5. Silver Cabinet with tonopen + Woods Lamp (ask ED charge nurse to help you find it): 000
Dot Phrases
One of the PAs, Annie Johnson, has an extensive list of dot phrases that I recommend using. I have also listed mine below.
ACDTRAUMAHP: template for HP for activations and consults
ACDPREOP: fill out for any patient likely going to the OR
TRAUMALISTDISPO: for list handoff
TRAUMALISTSUMMARY: for list handoff
ACDTRAUMALISTCOMMENTS: for list handoff
ACDSICUNOTE: use for daily progress note in ICU.
*When you admit a patient you do either a tertiary note if SICU is primary, or a consult if NSGY/Vascular/ACS is primary. Some people used different formats, but I just used the same template I used for my progress notes and changed the note type. Personally, I think this is nice since the person seeing the patient next can copy it forward and edit it
ACDCVC
ACDETT
ACDCHESTTUBE
TRAUMAPIGTAILINSERTION
Charting
They have May or may not be setup, if you need setup call IT
Misc
They have Clinical Practice Guidelines on their intranet that are a good base for managing different injuries/conditions, DVT/GI prophylaxis, rib protocol etc. Recommend getting familiar with these
“Pan-scan”= CT head, C spine, CTA neck, CTA Chest, abdomen, pelvis with T+L recons +/- a MaxFace. They are big on screening for BCVI
The distribution of residents is skewed to the ICU, while there is one resident in the bay during the day trying to cover activations and consults. If you’re in a good spot in the ICU its good to come down and help the bay resident by following up on imaging, doing lac repairs, seeing a consult etc. Also recommend coming down for activations if you can while in ICU.
Every attending and fellow I have encountered there was willing to answer questions I had about their thought process for managing different injuries, and were willing to help me learn new techniques procedurally.
Topics I came across included: Hemorrhagic shock/MTP, TBI management, traumatic aortic injury management, penetrating neck trauma, ARDS, chest tube management, DI, rib fractures, solid organ injury, reading trauma scans, DVT prophylaxis, GI prophylaxis.
If you need help with charting/logistics call “Tap” on Vocera and you get the trauma APP. If you need help clinically can call “Trauma fellow”, “Trauma chief resident”, “Trauma surgeon”
Procedures
A-line, CVC, Cordis/Trauma Line*, ETT, chest tubes/pigtails, Stryker needle use, Penrose drain placement, lateral canthotomy (sadly was bumped off this for a fellow but there are opportunities as optho isn’t always readily available and ED doesn’t seem keen to do them), did a patella and shoulder reduction, learned some different suturing techniques from surgery residents
ED attendings will usually let you take an intubation if there’s no ED resident around. Just introduce yourself before the patient comes in and ask if you can do it
Also, some people were able to grab procedures from non-trauma ED patients just by hanging around the trauma bay if there weren’t activations coming in.
They generally prefer to do a consent form for ICU procedures, rather than saying it’s emergent
Most emergent trauma lines go in the fem (sometimes landmark guided b/c someone is FASTing and the a-line usually gets the other US). CVCs usually IJ, but ask about doing subclavians and some attendings/fellows are cool with it, especially if there is already a chest tube
*Trauma line = their version of a Cordis. It is pretty much the same, except the dilator is already in the introducer in the kit. It is also a little less stiff than a Cordis, so you really need a good skin nick and grab at the base when inserting. They do have Cordis kits like we have but they prefer the one that says “Trauma Line.”
CVC/Trauma Line: 7
A-line: 13
ETT: 4
Chest Tubes: 4