The importance of thoracic surgery clinics for emergency medicine: a retrospective analysis of consultations

Background: Thoracic Surgery serves as a consultant for many specialties of medicine. In this study, we aimed to analyze the basic characteristics of the consultations requested by the Department of Emergency Medicine to the Department of Thoracic Surgery in a university hospital. Materials and Methods: This study includes the retrospective analysis of emergency medicine consultations of patients over the age of 18 to the Thoracic Surgery Clinics of Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University (COMU) Faculty of Medicine between 01/03/2014 and 01/03/2020. The cases were analyzed in two groups: the consultations requested with the initiative of the emergency medicine physician (Group A) and consultations requested as per recommendations of other physicians (Group B). Results: Of 486 consultations that met the inclusion criteria, 434 (89.3%) consultations were requested as per the recommendations of the emergency medicine physicians (Group A) and 52 (11.7%) were requested as per the recommendations of other physicians (Group B). No thoracic surgical diagnosis was established in 107 (22%) consultations. When compared between the two groups, no thoracic surgical pathology was found in 55 (12.6%) consultations from Group A and 52 (100%) consultations from Group B (p < 0.001). Conclusion: In our study, no thoracic surgical diagnosis was established in more than 20% of consultations requested by the emergency service. We believe that adding formal rotation training to thoracic surgery during the residency training of emergency medicine, which is the first specialty that meets emergency applications, will lead the diagnosis and treatment of thoracic surgical emergencies faster and more accurately.