There is controversy over who should serve as the Trauma Team Leader (TTL) at trauma-receiving centres. This study compared survival and emergency department (ED) length-of-stay between patients cared for by 3 different groups of TTLs: surgeons, emergency physicians (EPs) on call for trauma cases and EPs on shift in the ED.

We performed a retrospective cohort study involving all adult major blunt trauma patients (aged 17 and older) who were admitted to 2 level I trauma centres and who were entered into a provincial Trauma Registry between March 2000 and April 2002. The study was designed to compare the effect of TTL-type on survival and ED length-of-stay, while controlling for sex, age, and trauma severity as defined by the Injury Severity Score (ISS) and the Revised Trauma Score (RTS). Analysis was performed using linear regression modeling (for the ED lenght-of-stay outcome variable), and logistic regression modeling (for the surivial outcome variable).

There were 1412 patients enrolled in the study. The study population comprised 74% men and 26% women, with a mean age of 44.7 years (43.1, 46.6 and 42.8 years for surgeons, on-call EPs and on-shift EPs, respectively). The overall mean ISS was 23.2 (23.7 for surgeons, 22.9 for on-call EPs and 23.3 for on-shift EPs) and the overall average RTS was 7.6 (7.6 for surgeons, 7.6 for on-call EPs and 7.5 for on-shift EPs). The overall median ED length-of-stay was 5.3 hours (4.5, 5.3 and 5.6 hours for surgeons, on-call EPs and on-shift EPs, respectively; p = 0.07) and the overall survival was 87% (86% surgeon, 88% on-call EP, 87% on-shift EP; p = 0.08). No statistically significant relationship was found between TTL-type and ED length-of-stay (p = 0.42) or survival (p = 0.43) using multivariate modeling.

Our results suggest that surgeons, on-call EPs, or on-shift EPs can act as the TTL without a negative impact on patient survival or ED length-of-stay.