Elsevier

Surgery

Volume 141, Issue 3, March 2007, Pages 288-290
Surgery

Special section—acute care surgery
The concept of acute care surgery: A vision for the not-so-distant future

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.surg.2006.12.017Get rights and content

Section snippets

Scenario 1

A 70-year-old motor-vehicle crash victim lies on the street. A passerby alerts the 911 operator who dispatches paramedics. They arrive within minutes, start resuscitation, maintain spinal control, load the ambulance, and communicate with the nearest trauma center. Beepers are activated around the hospital. The trauma team assembles and organizes itself, expecting the patient. The patient arrives, Advanced Trauma Life Support protocol is applied, and role-assigned health care providers work in

Scenario 2

A 70-year-old patient with multiple comorbidities experiences major left quadrant pain while his colonic diverticulum ruptures. He calls his primary care physician’s office; the answering machine picks up his call, and the message directs him to call back or go to a “hospital.” His relatives bring him to the emergency room (ER) in the early morning hours. The ER is busy, and he waits for an hour. Finally, an ER physician requests tests and surgical consult. The consult, a junior surgical

Scenario 3

It is July, around midnight, and a woman falls from a height of 30 feet. She is intubated on the field and transferred to the trauma center with multiple injuries. The surgical attending leads the trauma team and requests appropriate consults. Advice about the head injury is offered by the second-year neurosurgical resident, who happened to be this attending’s intern 1 month ago. The neurosurgical resident runs back and forth with the films to discuss the patient with his senior, who is

References (20)

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (0)

View full text