----- Original Message -----
From: "Barton, Sue - RCHT"
Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2002 6:16 PM
Subject: Re: trick or treat
> I went to a conference in London in 1998 and heard a Professor Tony
Redmond
> give a talk on the relationship between Emergency Medicine and Disaster
> Medicine. He persuasively (to me at laest) argued that a packed A&E
> department was little better than the scene of a major incident.
Therefore,
> continuous dynamic triage should be performed by the most senior member of
> staff.
Not a good analogy Sue. Yes, we can devote a senior to triage in a major
incident situation, largely 'cause every surgeon in the hospital arrives in
your ED to lend a hand! In the normal day-to-day situation however, you are
often the only senior in the department. In this situation, being a
glorified triage nurse is not necessarily, in my opinion, the most sensible
way to go. Put another way, imagine a major incident where you had no other
seniors, just you and a few SHOs (it can happen, believe me). Would you
steadfastly triage 'cause that's what the manual says you should do, or
might you be tempted to go to resus and actually treat some of the more
moribund patients?
Adrian Fogarty
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