Surgical trainees and trauma emergencies.

An accident and emergency (A&E) training has been suggested as an essential part of the basic surgical training. The A&E curriculum should be divided into three sections: a critical curriculum, a core curriculum and a comprehensive curriculum. For instance, the critical curriculum contains topics that provide the opportunity to translate the ABCDE principles of trauma management into practice. Furthermore, a post in the A&E department provides the surgical trainee with significant exposure to the management of the polytrauma patient and to the management of other acute general surgical, urological and orthopaedic conditions. By presenting better educational programs and by reducing the non-medical tasks a trainee has to deal with, the education of surgical trainees during A&E attachment can be improved.