Common Abbreviations

ACS- Acute care surgery. Field of surgery that encompasses trauma, emergency general surgery and surgical critical care.

APP- advanced practice provider. Includes physician assistants (PA) and nurse practitioners (NP).

ICU- intensive care unit. Higher-acuity (sicker) patients requiring closer monitoring (continuous evaluation of vital signs), more invasive or more frequent interventions (mechanical ventilation, multiple cardiac medication infusions).

CRNA- certified registered nurse anesthetist.

CRRT- continuous renal replacement therapy.

EGS- Emergency General Surgery.

GCS- Glasgow Coma Scale.

IV- intravenous.

MCC- motorcycle crash/ collision.

MVC- motor vehicle crash/ collision.

SCC- surgical critical care.

Common Personnel

- Attending physician- most senior physician caring for a patient.

- Bedside nurse- the nurse who provides the direct patient care, including assessing a  patient's current clinical status, providing medications, interact with other teams that see the patient such as physical therapy or the wound care team, placing urinary catheters and monitoring urine output, communicating with the patient's physician team, providing patient education.

- Chief Resident- resident in their final year of residency training.

- Fellow- a physician that has completed preliminary training and undertakes advanced training in a subspecialty. Typically follows residency graduation, although Surgical Critical Care can be completed prior to graduating from surgical residency.

- Intern- a physician in their first year of residency training following medical school graduation.

Common Procedures

-  Arterial line placement- similar to an IV, this is a skinny catheter, but instead of being in a vein, it’s placed in an artery. This allows continuous monitoring of blood pressure and allows repeat labs, specifically arterial blood gas to assess respiratory status.

-  Bronchoscopy- use of a small camera (think of a really skinny colonoscope) to examine the airways of the lungs, take a specimen for culture or remove an obstruction.

-  Central line placement- placement of a large catheter into a large vein in the neck, under the clavicle (collarbone), or in the groin. The purpose is similar to an IV (intravenous) line, which is commonly placed to provide medication, fluids, or draw blood. A central line is larger- more drips can be connected to it, it can be kept in place longer than a peripheral IV, and it can allow delivery of special medications.

-  Intubation- placement of a plastic breathing tube (endotracheal tube) through a patients mouth, into their trachea (airway). Patients receive sedation medication and paralytic medication (medication to prevent muscle movement. This is commonly used for patients who are unconscious or are having breathing difficulties. It is also commonly used while patients are undergoing surgery

-  Laparotomy- vertical incision on the abdomen to allow examination of the organs in the abdomen. Also known as an “exploratory laparotomy” or “ex lap”.

-  Ostomy creation- in the unplanned setting, patients who undergo emergent surgery for trauma or bowel ischemia/ perforation, a segment of the bowel might be removed, reconnected or repaired. These patients are at a higher risk for their bowel connection or repair to fall apart (known as an anastomotic leak). To prevent this, sometimes it is safer to divert the stool toward an opening in the skin to allow stool to pass outside into a bag, instead of moving into the intestine that was repaired/ reconnected.

-  Ostomy reversal- reconnection of the bowel after a patient has recovery from emergency surgery. The bowel is reconnected (so the patient will now pass stool normally) and the skin opening is closed.

-  Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tube (PEG)- creation of a connection directly through the anterior abdominal wall into the stomach to allow feeding without requiring a tube in the patient’s nose.

-  Thoracotomy- incision on the chest to allow access to the organs in the chest (heart, lungs, esophagus).

-  Tracheostomy- creation of a connection directly from the front of the neck to the trachea (airway). A short curved tube is placed in the open, and the endotracheal tube (breathing tube) is removed from the mouth.

Common definitions

- Rounds- the process of evaluating and examining patients currently in the hospital.