Staff Trauma at Trauma Center : The departure or planned departure of all the UCI trauma center full-time staffdoctors clearly is cause for concern.

UCI Medical Center operates Orange County’s biggest and busiest trauma center, the first destination for victims of shootings and car crashes whose lives hang in the balance. That is why the departure or planned departure of all the trauma center’s full-time staff doctors clearly is cause for concern.

A surgeon who left last December after nine years at the trauma center said she had been concerned that staff members who were on call to back her up had little or no trauma experience. A colleague who left three months earlier agreed, saying lack of support meant he sometimes was forced to spend as many as 72 hours straight at the hospital. Long stints like that obviously take a toll on a surgeon, whose ability to diagnose a problem and wield a scalpel is crucial.

Medical center officials said the quality of care at the trauma center is as good as ever, and there have been no allegations that any patient suffered. But the concerns of the departed doctors that levels of care were in danger of declining need to be addressed.

Besides the two doctors who left, the trauma center’s acting director is departing for another job next month. Together, the three surgeons had nearly 30 years’ experience in critical care and constituted the entire full-time staff.

Executives of the county’s Emergency Medical Services division have met with university officials to discuss the turnover. The division’s medical director said the departures are a cause for concern.

The university has vowed to install new staff with the needed depth to provide proper care. This summer, three recent graduates of residency programs, all trained in trauma care, are slated to come on staff.

But officials need to ensure that when that trio gains years of experience it does not leave as well and that the UCI facility remains the county’s best trauma center.