I'm on trauma call today; I'm about 14 hours in and I've had six already. All moderate blunt traumas. (Meaning not really sick, but needs the activation of the trauma team. Trauma team = surgery trauma service, senior ER resident, x-ray techs. Blunt injury is like a motor vehicle or motorcycle collision. Penetrating is like a stab wound or gunshot wound.)
EMS brings the patient into the trauma bay and they've got en route vitals and the story of what happened, as well as the condition at the scene. When they arrive, there are at least 10 people in the room and it can get pretty noisy. But we all need to shut-up and listen to the whole story, which can be difficult at times. Sometimes the medic is in training or the firefighter isn't used to giving an oral narrative of what happened and sort of stand there waiting for an invitation to speak. So I say something to let them know we're ready for them.
Tonight when they arrived, I exclaimed, "Hi, everybody!"
The ER attending was standing right next to me and immediately answered, "Hi, Dr. Nick!"
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2 comments:
Gotta love those moderate traumas. Lately our trauma dispatchers have taken to billing as "trauma codes" any knife wound that comes in, even if it only penetrates half an inch, with no blood, and not in the center of the chest. Very disappointing to everyone who comes rushing in and puts on all the gowns, expecting a bloodbath.
Oh, I've totally got you beat. We had a trauma: "fall from unknown height." We were all thinking it was unknown because it was too freaking high to estimate.
Turns out they were too embarrassed to say it was a fall off a bus bench. How is that a trauma?? geez.
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