Archive

Tag: Thoracotomy

Is Age Just a Number When Cracking Chests?

Background: Have you considered age when determining whether a resuscitative thoracotomy (RT) is indicated? You’re not alone; over 1/3 of trauma surgeons surveyed consider age before performing a RT (Dennis 2016). Dr. E. Baue first described RT after cardiac trauma ...

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Trauma

Resuscitative Thoracotomy: What Really is the Quickest Way to a Person’s Heart?

Background: A resuscitative thoracotomy is a time-critical high acuity, low occurrence (HALO) procedure – as an emergency physician you need to know how to do it, but depending on your practice environment, it may be a once-in-a-career maneuver. All the ...

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Trauma

If You’re Going to do the Thoracotomy…do a Clamshell

Every now and again someone raises the issue on social media about resuscitative thoracotomy.  What are the indications (we have the EAST guidelines for that), what are the risks (highlighted in this important recent paper), and of course, whether EM ...

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Trauma

REBEL Core Cast 6.0 – Traumatic Arrest

Take Home Points: If the patient is a clear traumatic arrest, compressions aren’t indicated and, instead we should focus on the important interventions that need to be done. Ultrasound can be incredibly helpful in traumatic arrest. If you’ve got a ...

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Trauma

REBEL Cast Episode 17: The All Thoracotomy Episode

Welcome to the October 2015 REBELCast, where Swami, Matt, and I are going to tackle a couple of topics in the world of Trauma, specifically ED Thoracotomy. Now we all know that ED thoracotomy is a last ditch salvage effort, performed under ...

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ResuscitationTrauma

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