EmergencyPedia

Clinical Governance was a day of two halves; a morning of hard hitting clinical governance in the form of the morbidity and mortality review, and the airway audit. The afternoon was a brief look at the management of head injuries followed by an entertaining simulation and skills station.

Morbidity & Mortality

Sarah C presented a packed morbidity and mortality session, full of useful nuggets of information:

• In trauma, take into account the patients entire clinical state, not just blood pressure when considering the need for blood products
• Consider medical causes of cardiac arrest following relatively innocuous trauma
• The most common ECG rhythms in traumatic cardiac arrest are PEA and bradyasystolic rhythms, however VF and VT can occasionally be seen, requiring defibrillation
• Patients with significant burns can rapidly become hypothermic – keep the patient warm with blankets and environmental heating when possible

• In full thickness burns limiting neck movement or mouth opening then a primary surgical airway…