Belly & Beyond
A lap-belt-only occupant with lower-abdominal bruising should make you suspect the rupture of these gas- or fluid-filled organs.
What are hollow organs?
In plain English a "hip fracture" is almost always a break of this bone.
What is the proximal femur?
A true emergency that strikes when the body's cooling mechanisms are completely overwhelmed.
What is heatstroke?
The clinical term for inadequate tissue perfusion.
What is shock (hypoperfusion)?
The medical term for a bruise.
What is a contusion?
Before you ever lay hands on the trauma patient, you confirm this.
What is BSI and scene safety?
This age-related change in the abdominal organs leaves geriatric patients more vulnerable to internal injury.
What is loss of elasticity?
A joint injury in which the bone ends completely separate and lose contact.
What is a dislocation?
Sweat carries away water and these charged particles the body needs.
What are electrolytes?
The "fight-or-flight" system that speeds the heart and opens the bronchioles as shock sets in.
What is the sympathetic nervous system?
The double-layered membrane that lines the chest wall and wraps the lungs.
What is the pleura?
The "A" you protect first in the primary assessment — with spinal precautions in trauma.
What is the airway?
No matter how thirsty a shock patient is, you withhold this
What is anything by mouth?
The thin, slick cartilage capping the bone ends inside a movable joint.
What is articular cartilage?
The one venomous U.S. snake on this list that is not a pit viper.
What is a coral snake?
The type of shock caused by severe blood or fluid loss.
What is hypovolemic shock?
The dome-shaped muscle between the chest and abdomen that drives breathing.
What is the diaphragm?
Useful but never a reason to delay a critical patient's transport: this lengthy background information.
What is past medical history?
Right-upper-quadrant bruising after blunt trauma most likely involves this organ (or the liver next door).
What is the gallbladder?
The "zone of injury" isn't the fracture line — it's this surrounding area.
What is the zone of injury?
Most serious scuba-diving injuries trace back to doing this part of the dive too fast.
What is ascending (a too-rapid ascent)?
This vital-sign change — a climbing heart rate — is an early compensation that shows up before the blood pressure falls.
What is tachycardia?
This assessment finding is marked by bradycardia, hypertension with a wide pulse pressure, and Cheyne-Stokes respirations.
What is Cushing's Triad?
The scene-time target often quoted for critical trauma patients — the "platinum" window.
What is ten minutes?
For a sexual-assault patient with heavy groin bleeding and shock vitals, these are your three clinical priorities.
Control external bleeding, give oxygen, and transport promptly.
For a fractured tibia with suspected compartment syndrome, position the limb here — not elevated, not hanging down.
What is at the level of the heart.
Jostling a hypothermic patient who still has a pulse can throw the cold, irritable heart into this lethal rhythm.
What is ventricular fibrillation?
Minutes from the hospital with an unstable abdominal-trauma patient, this is the right ongoing action after treatment.
What is continuously monitor and reassess (and keep transporting)?
This assessment finding is marked by hypotension, muffled heart tones, and JVD.
What is Beck's Triad?
We don't stay on scene for long with trauma patients because trauma is this type of disease.
What is a surgical disease?