Session 28

Dr. Nii Darko is a community-based Trauma Surgeon. He's also an Osteopathic physician. Listen to his journey and what you should be thinking about. Dr. Darko has also been on The Premed Years podcast back in Session 196 and he is the host of the podcast called Docs Outside the Box.

[01:05] An Early Interest in Trauma Surgery

Practicing for almost five years now, Dr. Darko knew he wanted to be in two points of his life. As a seventeen-year-old, Nii had the opportunity to shadow a trauma surgeon in Newark, New Jersey, with his first exposure to trauma case was a person who got shot where they evaluated the patient and seeing a whole chorus of nurses and different medical staff helping the person. The trauma surgeon he was shadowing was at one corner of the room conducting the stuff, which to him seemed like an orchestra or rather a concerted type of chaos. The patient was taken into the operating room and when the doctor came out, he talked with the family. The doctor comes out of this operating room as a big superhero and saves the day. From then, he got hooked.

Fast-forward to residency around ten to twelve years later, Nii noticed that general surgeons were doing everything including trauma and found himself moving towards operating on the unknown which to him was the fun part about trauma. You don't know exactly what's injured so you have to use all of these different detective-type qualities to figure out exactly what's going on. So Nii felt trauma surgery was the best mix for him in terms of taking care of patients who need things like appendix or the gall bladder and at the same time use his superman qualities in high-adrenaline and highly stressful situations.

[04:40] Traits that Lead to a Good Trauma Surgeon

Nii cites patience as a very big trait considering that oftentimes, with trauma, you don't know what's going on  and a lot of things are going on at the same time. Another important quality is leadership. You need to understand that it's a very highly stressful situation. You have the ability to take a step back, be patient and at the same time, have the qualities where you direct people respectfully. Nii stresses the fact that no man is an island, particularly in medicine and although you'll be making decisions on your own, you are leading a team and if you can lead them effectively, it's always going to end up, for the most part, with good results for the patients.

Nii initially wanted to be obstetrician being greatly inspired by Bill Cosby of the Cosby Show who played the part of an obstetrician who was a positive African-American doctor figure. In fact in medical school, Nii was the first year representative for the OB/GYN club and he quickly realized afterwards that it wasn't for him. Orthopedic surgery was also in the running for a very short period of time for him but everything fell by the wayside when he did a rural general surgery rotation in the middle of Kansas and then knew from then on that general surgery was for him.

[06:58] A Typical Day and Types of Patients

Nii gets into the hospital by seven in the morning and a sign out period occurs where they talk about all the patients on the list, anything major that occurred the night before and then they talk about the plan for the next 12-24 hours. From 8 am to 7 pm, Nii handles different duties whether it be patient evaluation at the trauma bay or someone on the general floor. By 7pm, they do the sign out process again and whoever is on at night handles any situation that needs to occur at night and then do it all over again.

Nii typically treats patients from all walks of life, children and elderly patients as well patients in their late teens and 20's. As a trauma surgeon, majority of patients he sees are patients in their...