Triage

Building Community Resilience with Careflight

Rural trauma – a high-speed vehicle roll over, a farming accident with a chainsaw, a gas BBQ explosion at the family picnic.  These are all scenarios that may affect individuals & families…and the rural community.  Occasionally a multi-agency event such as a bushfire, extreme weather event or other natural disaster will cause traumatic injuries and …

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Safety in Resus – Use the Whiteboard!

There’s no doubt that for the small rural emergency department, a critically unwell patient can quickly overwhelm available resources.  Like many small rural hospitals in Australia, there is one doctor on call for emergency presentations, with the ward-based nursing staff (two in out location) responsible for ward care, assessment of outpatient attendances as well as …

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The Infamous Barbie Doll Story

If you haven’t already, listen to self-proclaimed “hottie” Liz Crowe, social worker from the Mater, delivering a blistering smaccTALK on ‘swearing your way out of a crisis‘. I met up with her just before the session for a bit of advice on swearing before my own smaccTALK; she did suggest that gratuitous use of the …

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Emergencies & GP after hours

Well there’s an interesting article this week from Emergency Medicine Australia (Nagree et al 2012 ‘Telephone triage is not the answer to ED overcrowding’ EMA 24 123-126) as well as a media release from the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine regarding triage. Before rural medicine I was an EM trainee. I’m pretty passionate about emergency …

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