Call it a dubious distinction, but Chicago is one of the best places in America to get field experience as a trauma surgeon. The city’s Level 1 trauma centers — hospitals specially equipped to handle the most severe injuries — treat a staggering volume and variety of patients, including, most notably, victims of so-called penetrating trauma, typically gunshot and knife wounds. In Chicago, such cases constitute nearly 30 percent of all Level 1 trauma admissions, compared with 4 percent nationwide. And then there’s the constant stream of those injured in the accidents and oddball misadventures one might expect in a city of three million people.

Chicago talked to a dozen practicing or recently retired trauma surgeons, each affiliated with at least one of the city’s six Level 1–certified hospitals: Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital, Mount Sinai Hospital, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital, and University of Chicago Medicine/Comer Children’s Hospital. Speaking anonymously, these doctors talked candidly about, among other things, what it’s like to operate on a 2-year-old shooting victim, what happens when violence spills into the trauma bay, why you should really wear a motorcycle helmet, and how best to handle a severed limb. The observations and stories below, presented in the doctors’ words, reveal much about our city — and about the fragility and resilience of human life.