Elliott R. Haut, MD, is Assistant Professor of Surgery at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. He is a specialist in trauma surgery and critical care medicine. We recently had a chance to speak to Dr. Haut about his medical career and interests.
Where are you from?
I grew up in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. I also lived in different parts of the city – West Philly, Society Hill, Rittenhouse Square – for another 12 years.
Where did you go to college and what was your academic major?
I went to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island where I majored in chemistry and economics.
The best thing about my time at Brown was meeting my wife, which happened on the first day of freshman orientation.
Ironically, when I took my first faculty job, the other two people in my division were also Brown University graduates.
What has been your career path from college to your current position?
My career path was one of the most direct routes possible- high school, college, medical school, internship, residency, fellowship, and right into my first academic job.
This traditional pathway is not the only way to get where I am; it just seemed to work out well for me at the time.
What do you like most about practicing at Hopkins?
I would have to say that my favorite thing about working at Johns Hopkins is the joy I get from the people I work with.
I have an incredible group of colleagues on the trauma service and in the Intensive Care Unit.
This includes not only the attending physicians, but the fellows, residents, interns, medical students, nurses, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, social workers, physical, occupational, and speech therapists, as well as countless other people that makes what we do possible.
Nothing gets done in a vacuum. It all gets done with this amazing teamwork.
What do you like least about practicing at Hopkins?
Despite Hopkins’s great reputation, it is still like other hospitals in the country where we struggle to get things done with limited resources.
There are never enough facilities for testing, therapists for rehab, doctors for consults, phlebotomists to draw blood, and critical care transport teams to move patients around the hospital.
If you weren’t a doctor, what would you be doing?
My training and focus has made me an expert in my field of trauma-critical care.
If I couldn’t be a doctor, I’d probably own a toy store, become a park ranger, or be a professional poker player.
What are your current clinical interests?
I am primarily a trauma surgeon, and my main clinical role is the
actual hands on care of injured patients.
East Baltimore is kind of a tough neighborhood and we see many patients with penetrating trauma, meaning stab and gunshot wounds.
I also practice acute care and elective general surgery and spend time dedicated in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) as a critical care intensivist, dealing with the sickest of the sick patients.
In addition, I perform bedside procedures (percutaneous tracheostomies and endoscopically placed feeding tubes) in the ICU, saving patients from the traditional trip to the operating room.
I love the variety that trauma, acute care surgery, and the ICU brings. I rarely do the same operation twice. I never know what I am going to do until it happens.
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Elliott Haut, MD – Trauma Surgeon and Book Author (Part 2 of 2)
Disclosure: The interviewer is a former staff member at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and has coedited a medical manuscript with Dr. Haut.