Trauma Surgeon Keeps Operating Room Swinging

NPR's Farai Chideya interviews Andre Campbell, MD, a trauma surgeon and chief of the medical staff at San Francisco General Hospital, and professor of surgery at UCSF, about his daily work in SFGH's Emergency Department. Campbell recently was featured in the first of a four-part San Francisco Chronicle series on SFGH. Campbell tells NPR he loves his job in spite of the difficulties and losses that come with trauma care, and listens to jazz in the ER and OR. "Everyday, it's exciting, it's fun, it's challenging. I get to work to try to do good," said Campbell. "So… when I do a lot of teaching of medical students, I'm working with the next generation of physicians. That's one of the most exciting things that I do on a daily basis, try to let them understand there are times that you have to feel it. [I]f something bad happens, you have to feel it, you have to process it, and you have to acknowledge [it]. And I do a lot of things with music. I'm a big jazz fan. So when I'm in the operating room, I'll put on some Miles Davis or John Coltrane. I mean, I enjoy what I do on a daily basis." Related Links: Trauma Surgeon Keeps Operating Room Swinging News & Notes, NPR, December 27, 2006 General, Life and Death at San Francisco's Hospital of Last Resort UCSF Today, December 13, 2006 Q&A with SFGH Chief of Staff UCSF Today Special SFGH Report, February 10, 2006