A few years ago I had a great opportunity to write an article series for EMS Magazine called Blood On Tap. It was all about the pioneering work being done by different pharmaceutical groups to create artificial substitutes for blood.
The technical name for the pharmaceutical products that mimic the properties of blood is “oxygen therapeutics.” Here’s the inside scoop, directly from the drug company big wigs, on why we don’t call them something cool like artificial blood.
The thing is, the drug company’s know full well that these fancy solutions are nowhere near advanced enough to mimic the many complex properties and functions of blood. That’s why they are aiming for the single goal of reproducing bloods ability to carry oxygen around the body. And, hence, the more lame name.
All told, blood is pretty magical stuff. Our understanding of blood in the prehospital universe only scratches the surface of all of bloods capabilities. However, there are several functions and properties of blood that you should know.
Here’s a quick crash course:
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Treatment Guidelines For The Burn Patient
You’ve taken an educated guess on burn depth, calculated the burn area and classified the burns severity. With those priorities out of the way we can start treating the victim. (Yes, I’m taking some creative literary licence here, since assessment and treatment tend to occur in tandem.)
There are things we tend to do well and things we tend to do poorly in prehospital burn management. Here are some “do and don’t” type guidelines to direct your burn treatment.
Always consider the possibility of non - accidental trauma in pediatric burns.
Do:
Assess the heck out of the Airway.
- Inhalation burns are easy to miss if you’re not paying attention. Burn victims have a tendency to gasp when they are burned. You need to look really close at that airway. Shine a light on the patients facial hairs (yes women have them also) and look for singed or missing patches. Look up their nose and in their mouth for evidence of burns.
- Listen to the lungs and auscultate over the trachea. Reassess frequently. Only time will tell for certain if there is damage to the lower airway or lungs. Until then, you need to reassess frequently and don’t get caught behind the eight ball trying to manage an airway that goes down hill due to unrecognized burns.
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