Introduction Health professionals deal with numerous hazards during their occupational life from a physical and mental point of view: precarious working conditions, irregular working hours, emotional pressure, physically demanding jobs, involving weight lifting and manual tasks, which may cause pain and musculoskeletal disorders. Our occupational health service assists more than 20,000 health workers in a large hospital complex in Latin America. It consists of a multidisciplinary team involving physicians, psychologists, engineers, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, as well as an emergency care service where workers may seek immediate medical attention.

Objective To describe the most frequent complaints related to musculoskeletal pain in emergency medical care at our occupational medicine service and the multidisciplinary approach for referring and treating these workers.

Methods This descriptive and retrospective study comprised data from the occupational emergency care service from 2016 to 2020. All complaints related to International Classification of Diseases (ICD10) codes M and S were analyzed.

Results 13,312 consultations were carried out in our service from 2016 to 2020 due to ICDs M and S; 73.1% workers were female, which coincides with genre distribution in our service. The leading cause of musculoskeletal pain was low back pain (M54.5), whereas finger injuries (S61.0) and ankle sprains (S93.0) were the most important complaints related to trauma. Visits related to musculoskeletal complaints were less frequent in 2020 compared to other years due to Covid-19 pandemics, since this service was responsible for evaluating and testing workers with respiratory symptoms. Workers with musculoskeletal complaints were referred directly from emergency care or occupational physician to multidisciplinary team: orthopedic surgeon, acupuncture, physiotherapy or work adjustment with occupational team.

Conclusion Occupational emergency care data is an important indicator of injuries and pain in healthcare professionals. Its integration with a multidisciplinary team is essential to prevent further musculoskeletal illnesses in hospital workforce.