Definitive Anaesthetic Trauma Care Courses DATC

 

Introduction

 

When the casualty reaches the hospital, emergency care transits into advanced trauma care. For the severely injured, this should result in a fast evaluation in the emergency room and then proceed to the operating theatre and/or the intensive care.

Best possible in-hospital care needs a coordinated multimodal approach by an informed and trained team.

Teamwork allows ideas to germinate, cooperation to be additive, individual qualities to be used, mistakes to be easily addressed and corrected and as a concept creates better patient safety.

In most settings the in-hospital team of acute trauma care will consist of nursing staff, surgeons, anaesthetists and intensivists. Advanced trauma care and trauma decision making for surgeons is taught in the DSTC. By adding the DATC, we add anaesthetists and intensivists with relevant knowledge to the trauma mindset. The DATC covers the Damage Control period until re-operation for definitive treatment. Mutual understanding of the concepts and procedures specific to each speciality will ultimately lead to an improved patient outcome.

The DATC is always given together with the DSTC. Different countries integrate the two courses in different manner: DSTC and DATC; DSATC or an integrated DSTC.

The position within IATSIC and the integrated organisational structure of both DSTC and DATC reflects the will for a close cooperation between the surgical and anaesthetic teams. As our knowledge in trauma management increases , the DATC together with DSTC aims at providing a teaching platform for optimal collaborative trauma care.

Chris P. Bleeker
On behalf of the DATC subcommittee IATSIC