The novel concept of acute care surgery (ACS) was initially proposed by the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma in 2005. The emerging specialty was composed of trauma, surgical critical care, and emergency general surgery [1]. Several factors have been proposed as contributing to the emergence of ACS in the U.S.; a national shortage of general surgeons [2], decreased interest in trauma or surgical critical care as a career option [3], and a medical blind spot of nontrauma patients who required emergency surgical treatment. ACS has been successfully adopted in many U.S. medical centers and has improved patient outcomes and treatment efficiency [4-8]. Patients who needed emergency surgical care traditionally had to wait for the general surgeon on-call, who was usually working in outpatient departments or performing elective surgery; In this traditional model, a blind spot was evident for surgical treatment of non-trauma patients before ACS was adopted [5]. This lack of prompt availability of the general surgeon for patients who needed emergency general surgery, delayed surgical evaluation, and treatment for these critically ill patients. Trauma and surgical critical care as a specialty is not
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