St Emlyn's at the London Trauma Conference

It’s been another great day at the London Trauma Conference and we are pretty excited about the podcasts we’ve recorded today with the friendly and enthusiastic LTC speakers. Missed day 1’s podcast? Catch it here.

Highlights from today’s talks included:

Marius Rehn on the grey tsunami (issues in elderly trauma)

Why older patients at greater risk… #LTC2014 pic.twitter.com/L4bkdKjSts

— Iain Beardsell (@docib) December 10, 2014

Ross Fisher with an awesome presentation on paediatric trauma, challenging us to change our perspective

RT @docib: "We are not going to get good results (in Paeds trauma) by experience" @ffolliet at #LTC2014

…As numbers are too small

— Natalie May (@_NMay) December 10, 2014

Humour from Prof Tim Draycott talking about trauma in the pregnant patient – he also managed to squeeze in some general O&G pearls for the ED clinician

Great resource for training – PROMPT training http://t.co/0zjKOPGvQ1 #LTC2014

— Dr Scott Grier (@drsgrier) December 10, 2014

Tom Evens on his experiences as coach to an elite athlete and their applicability to performance culture for trauma teams (with mentions of marginal gains and metacognition)

Performance culture by @DocTomEvens #LTC2014 pic.twitter.com/DShvSWQoZ1

— Cliff Reid (@cliffreid) December 10, 2014

Matthew Wiles took on the issues with ATLS and thoughts about its future

Pseudoaxioms in trauma anaesthesia- GCS 8 as trigger to intubate, MILS, permissive hypotension, RSI for all trauma, CP, NPAs in trauma.

— Brian Burns (@HawkmoonHEMS) December 10, 2014

I didn’t tweet much from it but believe me when I say that Forensic Pathologist Dr Stephen Leadbeatter’s talk on learning from trauma deaths was hilarious.
A session of rapid-fire focussed talks including:
- Cooling in isolated head injuries (not much evidence)
- Calcium in shocked trauma patients (sensible to consider in hypovolaemic patients, if measured Ca2+<0.9mmol/L, and 10ml 10% CaCl with every 4 units in massive transfusion)
- IO access (we need it – but not all the time and the jury’s still out as to whether blood via IO haemolyses too much to be of actual use to the patient)
- Has FAST scanning had its day? (rarely adds to management in stable patients; performance data falls dramatically outside research centres with enthusiasts and operator dependence is a big problem in real life practice however there may be an evolving role for US assessment in shock). St.Emlyn’s has been here before.
- The role of social media in improving trauma care (luckily, there is one…! And we’re pleased to repeat St Emlyn’s got a number of mentions)

Of course, there’ll be more from the conference as we release our speaker podcasts but for now click below to listen to our reflections and learning points from day 2.

I’m off back to Virchester tonight (someone has to work!) but Iain will be around recording and tweeting from day 3 – watch this space!

Before you go don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast using this link.