EAST is actively involved in defining the future of trauma surgery. This page contains links to two important papers on this topic.

Position Paper Efforts are underway throughout American Surgery to redefine the scope of general and trauma surgery, and to determine training paths required for board certification. Current proposals are formulated based on both current and past practice. However, these initiatives are proceeding, with little regard for the willingness of candidates to pursue these practices given the future health care and social environment. Moreover, the sociocultural and professional mores of the future prospective candidate pool must also be considered. The Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma has explored the issue from the standpoint of patients, the health care system and the surgeons of the future. It has attempted to identify key opportunities for change, which might enhance this surgical specialty in this position paper.

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Collective Review The discipline of trauma surgery, much like the trauma systems it serves, is in the throes of an identity crisis that threatens its future.1-5 This crisis exists within the larger context of questions regarding the current and future professional persona of general surgery as a discipline. Various efforts initiated by a number of organizations are underway to define and/or re-define what actually constitutes general surgery and trauma surgery, as well as the training path required to attain certification as such. This collective review of the literature and other sources of information explores, and attempts to predict, the needs of patients and the health care system in the future. It also seeks to identify voids to be filled or opportunities to be seized which might increase the market share of this surgical specialty. Equally important is its effort to ascertain factors that are incentives or disincentives to entering the field so that these factors can be addressed in crafting a training path and practice model.

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