Category: Teaching

Trauma in the ED…Day 2 of Trauma Care 2019

  • Should ED manage the Trauma airway?
    For: Dr Simon Laing @simon_laing
    Against : Dr Felicity Clark @felicityjeclark

A debate with an ED consultant for and an Anaethestist against.
The eventual conclusion was that it doesn’tmatter who manages the airway as long as they are trained, competant and current with good governance in place.

  • Chest tubes in Trauma – Mr Richard Steyn
    Bigger drains aren’t always better however they need to be able to drain without blocking or clotting, not kink, secured appropriately.

Prime drains with sterile saline and thoracic surgeons can cell save blood.

Flutter bags for chest drains rather underwater seals are likely to be easier to manage until a ptoent gets to definitive thoracic care.
Chest drains should only be clamped to change bottle.

  • Non-compressible torso harmhorrhage NCTH- Surgeon Commander ED Barnard @edbarn

Is REBOA effective in a TCA?
Haemorrhage is the leading cause of survivable trauma death, external haemorrhage has been reduced by the use of tourniquets.
We dont know if REBOA works but the key is placing REBOA during the low output state rather than during arrest.
The REBOA trial is ongoing.

Haemostatic agents for catastrophic haemorrhage – squadron leader Robert james

Major harmhorrhage is the major cause of preventable death in Trauma
A system approach improves survival.
Trauma chain of survival…
Early first aid, advanced Prehospital care, damage control resucitation and excellent rehabilitation.

  • Simulation in Major trauma – Simon Mercer

Simulation allows people to rehearse skills in a risk free environment.

Functional fidelity (does it work like real), physical fidelity(does it look real), psychological fidelity (does it make people feel real).

  • Moral Injury – Esther Murray @Em_Healthpsych

Moral injuries – Witnessing incidents which contravene your moral code
Most of those affected by incidents will not have a diagnosable mental disorder.
If you are stuck processing/reliving something you are less available to your team, it reduces your bandwith therefore you can’t offer support and empathy to colleagues.

It is often the little things that stick with you after a job, talking about it needs acknowledgement that it has affected you. Forced intervention is really bad for people, not everyone will be ready to talk at the same time, some will never want to talk. Providing spaces to talk is more important.

  • Head Injury Prognostication – Professor Mark Wilson @markhwilson

SDH and EDH are not brain Injuries, the secondary brain injury occurs if these are not treated.
What time point are we prognosticating at? At times etc of injury or 6 hours later when bleeding has occurred due to antiplatelets?

Prognostication needs to occur over a few hours, resucitation needs to have occurred, the duration of observation is a clinical judgement.

Trauma Care Conference

#TraumaCare19

@TraumaCareUK

Mix of PHEM and Major incident sessions today

  • Mental Resilience – Professor Richard Williams

Resilience – a process linking a set of adaptive capabilities to a positive trajectory of functioning and adaption after a disturbance.

Compared to the reference population ED and Pre-hospital staff have higher levels of fatigue, poor sleep, depression and anxiety.
Stress levels tend to be higher when the care involves children, collegues, older people or disabled people. Psychological impact tend to be worse if patients die, we feel we should have done more, there is little percieved support from colleagues, family or friends or the incident follows other stressful events.

Improving patient care can only be done by increasing the care of staff as they deliver the care.
Caring for the personal needs of staff reduces clinical errors.

Things that affect staff experience are Organisational culture, workload intensity, relationships with peers, emotional intelligence, length of experience, injury, abuse, Role at work, and social support,

Secondary stressor can be worse than the primary incident and can be these things that prevent people from coping.

The primary mental disorder in relation to stress is substance misuse not ptsd.

It is OK to be upset it does not mean you are not resilient.

Social support and social integration are the most important factors in life expectancy…we need to turn groups of collegues into

  • Field  Amputation – Professor Sir Keith Porter @TCUK_KeithP

Like many things we do in Emergency Medicine the technique is not difficult and uses basic kit; it is the decision making that is the difficult part. Phone a friend and get someone else there with you for those difficult decisions.

  • Mechanism of injury and new car design– Dr. Gareth Davies

Understanding Mechanism of Injury can help predict injury patterns.
Every mechanism gives a predictable pattern of injuries, what happens to the patient depends on speed of vehicle, shape of vehicle, rigidity of vehicle, presence of advanced protection,speed of pedestrian, size of pedestrian and age of pedestrian. Ask a 1st hand witness if possible to prevent Chinese whispers.

Injuries come from change in velocity and exchange of energy over time.
Low speed deceleration causes less injury than sudden stop.

  • Organisational Leadership – Mrs Jane Gurney @janegurney5

Be passionate about what you do.

Engage with all members within your organisation.

Lead by example.

The right decisions are not always the easy decisions.

  • Learning From Traumatic Deaths –Professor Guy Rutter

Post-mortum CT gives the cause of death for most patients, medical or traumatic. It can also tell us if our attempts at life saving interventions were done correctly.

Analysis of post-mortem images and injuries can help confirm the mechanisms of injury.

  • Emergency Planning for Major Incidents @qehbham

Casualty regulation and capability chart determines how many pts (go to MTC) P2 go to TU. P3 go to other hospitals.

Recent major incidents have higher numbers of P1 casualties – previously assumed 10% in a major incident…recent incidents have all have been considerably more than this; trauma units will get some P1 patients. Trauma Units therefore need to declare what sort of patients they can take… P1 but with specific injuries.

When trying to clear the ED patients don’t necessarily leave ED even when told it is a Major incident they need to be individually redirected.

NHS England have produced clinical guidelines for major incidents and mass Casualty incidents in an easy to read format.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/clinical-guidelines-for-major-incidents-and-mass-casualty-events/

 

Thomas Spint – how to apply

Invented by a Welshman ‘Hugh Owen Thomas’, the introduction of this simple device in World War 1 went on to reduce the mortality of #femurs from 80% to 16%.

The Kit

  • Measuring Tape
  • Thomas splint – Adult or Paediatric (depending on size)
  • Hoop – Sizing guide can be found here
  • Slings
  • Hoop Pad
  • Skin Traction – Adult or Paediatric
  • Padding rolls x 2
  • Bandages (wide) x 2
  • Tape
  • Scissors
  • Tongue Depressors x 2

Printable application guide

Measuring

Measure the Inside Leg (unbroken leg) and add 30cm/12inch (to give room for the traction)

Adjusting Splint

Adjust length to the above measurement. ensuring the Hoop is at an angle with the lateral (outside leg) higher than the medial (inside leg).

Set up

  • Apply the hoop Pad (to reduce pressure and secure to tight)
  • Apply the 4 slings (lowest should be 40cm from base)
  • Apply padding along slings
  • Creat a small padding for behind the knee

Application

  • Ensure Adequate analgesia (this hurts) – typically Opiates and entonox
    • Femoral nerve block may be helpful (however, this is variable due to the innovation of the femur and reduces the more distal the fracture)
  • Check Genitals not trapped – by the hoop
  • Apply skin traction & and bandage from ankle to thigh
  • Secure the tight Clip – remembering to put the padding under the clip and velcro round

The Knot

1. take the strings and pass one over and one under the sides of the frame.

2. secure tightly with a Reef Knot

3. pass strings down (one over and one under) around the base, bringing them back over the Reef Knot and  back around the base. This makes a pulley system.

4. Tension the pulley system and tie-off using a bow

5. Pass the tongue depressors (2 tongue depressors tapped together), twist the tongue depressors to achieve the required tension, and lock off against the side.

 

Bandage & Elevate

  • Bandage the leg to the sling using the bandage – to keep secure
  • Place a pillow or blankets under the splint to elevate the heel – To prevent pressure sores

Dislocated Shoulder (Teaching Video)

Great review of shoulder reduction, techniques and sedation. 

Learning points:

  • Most techniques will work 80% of the time (Best results tailor the technique to the patient)
  • Kocker’s shouldn’t be used in # greater tuberosity
  • Cunningham technique looks interesting (I’m going to give this a go)
  • Traction is the what causes the most pain. Reduce the traction & Reduce the sedation required

#EuSEM2018 – Day 1

For those of you working hard on the shop-floor a quick summary of whats going on in Glasgow @ #Eusem2018

 

Sepsis

3 interesting talks from dual Emergency Med and Infectious disease specialists, from Denmark and Germany, which highlighted that we are all in the same boat, and again doing the basics right is what maters.

Antibiotic Stewardship (What we do in ED, dictates inpatient care)

  • Viral v.s. Septic – clinical differentiation is not reliable, and POCT for flu may be useful in the high prevalence of an outbreak but performs poorly the rest of the time.
  • Choosing well – we can reduce the use of broad-spectrum antibiotic usage dramatically by using our site specific antibiotics [68-85% of the time we can correctly establish site clinically i.e. without tests – if it sounds like a chest infection it is]
  • Blood cultures – really important for guiding the care of our inpatient colleges, esp. to help deescalation, [2 sets are better than 1]

Antibiotics within an hour

  • 33% mortality reduction –  more and more studies demonstrate the benefits of early antibiotic treatment

  • Delay of 2nd dose kills – with longer boarding times in ED waiting for wards we need to remember that second dose it matters.

 

Sedation

Is TCI (Target-Controlled Infusion) the way forward? Basically using an anaesthetic pump to smooth sedation instead of bolusing. Its already be used by non-anaesthetics in several areas and demonstrates lower complication rate than the RCEM sedation audit 0.05% vs approx 4%, when you look across studies.

PROTEDs group are currently doing a feasibility study into its application into the ED, early results show set up is quick, but the sedation time is slow. However, they admit that so far they have been very cautious with their dosing and are looking for optimal dosing regime.

 

Doing the basics well

There were a few pearls to take away.

  • ECG moment artefact – if you get the patient to hold their arms out forward until they are too tired to move the artefact goes away!!
  • Radiology in pregnancy
    • Doses under 50mSV are not harmful to baby
    • CXR is 0.1mSV (10 days background radiation)
    • CT abdo pelvis 20mSV
    • Once again doing the best for Mum is best for the baby
      • Use Ultrasound/MRI where we can but if X-Ray/CT is warranted use it
      • However, when multiple test are required (i.e. trauma) we need to actively monitor how that dose is increasing.