Trauma & Orthopaedics

St Emlyn’s reports from the opening day of the London Trauma Conference 2014, with an accompanying podcast summary. Topics include traumatic arterial dissection, impact brain apnoea, the development of major trauma centres, research involving children and older people, and trauma care in motorsport.

A guide to the Royal College of Radiologists’ 2014 recommendations on imaging injured children. Natalie May explains why paediatric injury patterns and radiation concerns require a distinct approach, then works through the report’s advice by body region and the role of clinical assessment in deciding whether to image.

Iain Beardsell and neurointensive care consultant John Hell discuss diffuse axonal injury in this 2014 podcast. Using a hypothetical injured cyclist, they explore the underlying mechanisms, why initial imaging may reveal little, the evolution of secondary injury and the difficulty of predicting recovery for an individual patient.

A round-up from the final day of the College of Emergency Medicine’s 2014 Exeter conference. Short talk summaries cover traumatic cardiac arrest, major trauma in older people and traumatic bleeding, alongside reflections on how freely shared conference resources can extend learning beyond those attending in person.

Can CT measurements identify which older patients with acute subdural haematoma need neurosurgical referral? This 2014 journal club examines a proposed decision tool, questioning selection bias, measurement reliability and how a ‘surgical’ bleed was defined, and explaining why promising retrospective findings still need validation.

A 2014 podcast introduction on trauma team leadership and the challenge of moving patients from ED arrival to CT within 30 minutes. The post places that goal alongside UK trauma standards of the time and includes a trauma transfer checklist to support the discussion.