Lots of us look after major trauma patients: but I can almost guarantee that no one has looked after trauma to the scale of Shehan Hettiaratchy. He gave a fascinating talk at the 2019 PICS/PCICS conference based around his experiences of major combat trauma in Afghanistan.
The survival rate for ISS 45 patients increased from 30% to 95%. How did they keep these patients alive? Extraordinary outcomes: but at what cost? What is the morbidity?
What are the ten most important principles in a combat trauma emergency department?
And what does the future hold? Freeze dried plasma? Ischaemic preconditioning? And how do we turn down the “supply” arm of the perfusion balance?
Reference list for this podcast:
Battlefield Resuscitation of the Future, Martin et al, Front Line Surgery
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