Citation

Keating EM, Price RR, Robison JA. BMJ Paediatr Open 2019; 3(1): e000532.

Affiliation

Department of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, BMJ Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1136/bmjpo-2019-000532

PMID

31423470

PMCID

PMC6688678

Abstract

At our level I paediatric trauma centre in the USA, our team includes a paediatric emergency medicine attending, a paediatric emergency medicine fellow, a trauma surgeon, a surgery nurse practitioner, an anaesthesiologist, multiple trauma-trained nurses, a respiratory therapist, an X-ray technician, a pharmacist, a phlebotomist and a recorder. The paediatric emergency team coordinates care with EMS before the child arrives to the hospital and the entire team is most often fully assembled and briefed 5–10 min before the child arrives.

At the hospital where we work in Malawi, when a trauma patient rolls in, the job of the entire trauma team above is done by a single surgery intern due to severe staff shortage. And, if the injured patient is a child, they may not be seen by a paediatric health professional during the entirety of their hospitalisation.

Although injuries affect all age groups, they have a particular impact on children and adolescents and are responsible for over 900 000 deaths/year globally in children 18 years and younger ...

Language: en

Keywords

accident & emergency; injury prevention; paediatric surgery; tropical paediatrics