List Archives

Mon Oct 6 19:47:38 BST 2008

Try looking at the Air Medical Journal - most are from statements of the Air
Medical Association or similar. Largely thumbsuck stuff though -  limited
evidence for anything in air-med! Some others quote inferences from the ACS
list of who must go to a "Level 1 Trauma Center" - see the ATLS manual.

I would not trust anything published in the Air Medical "Journal" unless it
came from someone I respected a great deal already and considered to be
reputable.   It's akin to judging a political issue based upon the press
releases of a particular party or candidate.

I think the large scale study that showed that mechanism of injury was a
poor predictor of actual injury severity pretty much eclipses most if not
all of the questionable studies that have come out of the AAMS propaganda
rag that "support" the more or less industry wide practice of flying anyone
and everyone that they can get their hands on.  The attempts to defend such
practices do far more harm to the industry because it draws attention to the
herd of elephants in the living room every time a helicopter goes down.

If they put as much effort into trying to determine when and where we can
really help people by flying them as they put into whitewashing public
opinion and threatening anyone who questions their stance with legal action,
we might actually be saving patients rather than simply shuffling them
around in expensive and flashy helicopters at great expense in both money
and the lives of our colleagues.

-- 
Stephen L. Richey, CRT
Aviation Injury Research Project Leader
Saginaw Valley State University
Work E-mail: slrichey at svsu.edu
Home Office Phone: 248-366-4452

"It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring
momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are
always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen
themselves."- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

List Archives

For your convenience, find the Trauma List Archive Below

Need help locating specific citations on Mechanism of Injury, Over/Under Triage, and medical aircraft usage