If the emergency department physician in a Level III or IV Trauma Care Facility has decided to have the patient transported to a trauma center, does the general surgeon on call still have to come in?
Yes. When the general surgeon is paged for a major trauma patient, he/she must respond to the emergency department regardless of the decision to transfer the patient. In a Level III Trauma Care Facility the general surgeon is expected to respond for all major trauma patients. He/she shall be a part of the trauma team activation, which is explained in *footnote 6. The surgeon may need to give operative control of hemorrhage or other necessary treatment prior to transfer. In Frequently Asked Questions on the website EMTALA.com it states: “As noted above, Section 1395dd(d)(1)(C) imposes a penalty on a physician who fails to respond to an emergency situation when he is assigned as the on-call physician.” For Level III and IV Trauma Care Facilities, 30 minutes is the maximum time for the surgeon to respond and this begins at the time of the patient arrival. A major trauma patient is defined as a patient who has sustained major or severe injuries to more than one system of a person’s body or
