All health care professionals bear witness to traumatic events at work. Post traumatic stress and vicarious trauma have been extensively studied in military and emergency response personnel.Very little work has occurred on the impact of witnessing and caring for patients undergoing trauma and life altering events on health care workers. Post traumatic stress contributes to physician wellness and burnout. It impacts personal wellness as well as work output and has a significant cost to the individual, the institution and to the public. This round is an opening to a larger conversation of these issues within anesthesiologists and peri operative teams.
