Pre-hospital Trauma Life Support

The PHTLS course was created in recognition of the need for additional training in the handling of patients in the pre-hospital environment. This book is the required text for the PHTLS course run by the Royal College for Surgeons in the UK and is also used on the PHTLS courses run in Europe. Patients with injuries to multiple body systems often need surgical intervention and critical, in-hospital care. However, the pre-hospital patients who are stabilized in the pre-hospital setting and then quickly transported to an appropriate medical facility have the best chance of survival. The PHTLS course seeks to educate the emergency services about how to identify, stabilize, treat, and transport trauma patients with the highest level of care possible and to increase their chances of survival. It enhances and increases knowledge and skills in delivering critical care to the trauma patient. Identifying the mechanism of injury, interpreting signs and symptoms, understanding pathophysiology, recognizing life-threatening injuries, and honing assessment skills all help the first on the scene to identify a trauma patient with multiple injuries and perform appropriate interventions.
Features: * Understanding the mechanism of injury is critical for the first responder arriving on the scene, especially when patient injury is unclear or not obvious. * Emphasizes the understanding of mechanism of injury, pathophysiology of life threatening etiologies, and the physiological meaning of signs and symptoms. * Anatomy, physiology, pathophysiology, assessment and management discussed for trauma as related to each body region. * Chapters on Spine Skills and Airway Skills outline techniques and procedures with photos alongside text in a step-by-step atlas format.