Emergency Management of Pediatric Trauma

Abstract

Pediatric emergency medicine is a relatively young subspecialty but is responding to identified deficiencies in the emergency care of children. Dr Thom Mayer's textbook reflects sensitivity to deficiencies in our national system for delivery of pediatric emergency care. He mentions that Over 90% of the 16,000,000 pediatric emergency visits to emergency departments of general hospitals (p 524), and follows that the greatest problem in training medical personnel to care for the injured child relates to the relatively small number of cases of pediatric trauma that seen in any given emergency room (p 525). Dr Mayer then comments that even though the community's pediatricians may be a valuable resource, they are rarely in the emergency department when a pediatric victim of serious trauma initially arrives (p 525). In the chapter written by Dr Alex Haller entitled Organization of a Regional Pediatric Trauma and Emergency Center, Dr Haller emphasizes the