List Archives

Mon Sep 14 13:39:30 BST 2009

From: KMATTOX at aol.com
> I am sorry that you have a dedicated CT in the middle of your trauma bay

--> I must say I have never seen one of those. What I have seen (and mentioned in my previous message) is a scanner "adjacent to your trauma bay or whatever you call it and making sure you only use it when appropriate".

> making it over available for every whelm of imaging. I am convinced that over 90% of all CT scans ordered in most ECs are totally unnecessary and do not alter decision making or therapy. 

--> Now it is me who is sorry...

It appears that you are speaking about surgical colleagues who are likely to make decisions about who to image and who not to image based upon the physical location of the machine... I still prefer to live in the hope that I will not meet such.

Our surgeons appear to be able to make appropriate use of a CT during the decision-making process. Although I am not "convinced" yet, our locally-collected evidence (not a research project - just our data - will not be published), as well as data from a few other places, is that they have successfully avoided a few laparotomies, based upon scans and have also decided to monitor patients in ITU and more intensely, based on CT findings which were not suspected clinically.

Although we have not yet been "caught" with a destabilising patient inside the CT room, it being only a few feet away from the trauma bay and with sufficient space/equipment to work in, has certainly facilitated the decision to scan and avoid surgery in a few cases where the surgeons themselves admitted they would not have wanted to go 100m down corridors and an elevator to the radiology department. Despite not being a surgeon myself, I do enjoy seeing my surgical colleagues being able to relax a bit more ;-)

_________________________________________________________________
Learn how to add other email accounts to Hotmail in 3 easy steps.
http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/167688463/direct/01/

List Archives

For your convenience, find the Trauma List Archive Below

TRANSMEDIASTINAL GSW