Background@#After the
laws regulating
emergency medicine were amended in 2012, regional
trauma centers were established in
South Korea.
Plastic surgeons specialize in the simultaneous surgical care of
patients with facial
trauma,
burns, and complicated
wounds. The objective of this study was to evaluate the
role of the
plastic surgery department in treating severe
trauma patients. @*
Methods@#From January 2012 to December 2018, we enrolled 366 severe
trauma patients with an
Injury Severity Score (ISS) over 15
who received
treatment by
specialists in the
plastic surgery department. Of these
patients, 298 (81.4%) were
male, and their mean age was 51.35 years (range, 6–91 years). The average ISS was 22.01 points (range, 16–75 points). @*Results@#The most common
diagnosis was facial
trauma (95.1%), and
facial bone fracture (65.9%) was most common
injury within this subgroup.
Patients were referred to 1.8 departments on average, with the
neurosurgery department
accounting for a high proportion of collaborations (37.0%). The most common cause of
trauma was
traffic accidents (62.3%), and the average
length of stay in the
general ward and
intensive care unit was 36.90 and 8.01 days, respectively. Most
patients were discharged home (62.0%) without additional transfer or readmission. @*Conclusions@#Through this study, we scoped out the
role of the specialty of
plastic surgery in the multidisciplinary team at regional
trauma centers. These results may have implications for
trauma system
planning.