Introducing the Trauma Team Leader Tips (TTL Tips) Series

Edited by Prof. Simon Carley & Dr. Greg Yates

Leading a trauma team is one of the most challenging and rewarding roles in emergency medicine. It’s a blend of clinical expertise, calm leadership, communication, and the ability to make decisions when the stakes are high. The Trauma Team Leader (TTLtips) Tips on St Emlyn’s explores what it really means to lead in trauma, through clinical insight, human factors, and team dynamics.

Each post in the series focuses on a specific bite-size aspect of trauma leadership, from managing massive haemorrhage and handling handovers, to communication, cognitive load, and technical issues such as pelvic binders and CT interpretation. The tips are deliberately short, practical, and shareable, designed for use on the shop floor. You’ll also find downloadable versions to print or share in your own departments and teaching sessions. You can find them on the St Emlyn’s website by searching for TTLtips (use that search bar up there on the top right).

This series is edited by Prof. Simon Carley and Dr. Greg Yates, but it builds on the collective experience and learning of many clinicians across St Emlyn’s and Virchester, working both prehospital and in-hospital. You’ll be hearing contributions from across the team as we go forward. The lessons here come from years of teamwork, debriefs, and shared reflection, from paramedics, nurses, emergency physicians, anaesthetists, and surgeons whom we work with every day. Where we can we will give you an evidence base, but on many occasions there isn’t one and it’s just our opinion. Make of that what you will!

The series should be relevant to everyone from those just starting as TTLs, through to experienced clinicians who have picked up ideas along a long and varied career. Here in Virchester they have been shared for many years, but we now think it’s time to bring them to a wider audience.

We recognise that there is no single right way to lead a trauma team. What you’ll read here represents our own thoughts and practices, shaped by evidence, experience, and ongoing debate. We know that others do things differently, and that’s exactly the conversation we want to encourage. If your approach varies, we’d love to hear about it. Together we can refine, challenge, and improve how we lead trauma care.

Ultimately, great trauma leadership is about creating calm, clarity, and coordination amid chaos. Whether you’re a consultant, trainee, or prehospital clinician, we hope this series helps you lead better, think deeper, and support your team and patients.

Follow along on St Emlyn’s Blog as we release new TTL tips, and please download, share, and discuss them with your teams. We will also be running the series on our Instagram channel here.

Our first TTL tip will be out shortly, looking at where and how we look for injury in penetrating trauma.

Because leadership, like trauma care itself, works best when it’s shared.