BLS Support / Daily Scenario / #2 MVC

What is your primary concern?

  • Head Pain

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Patent Airway

    Votes: 6 66.7%
  • Chest Pain

    Votes: 3 33.3%
  • Abdominal Pain

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    9

VFlutter

Flight Nurse
3,728
1,264
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and they're interventions with a solid and proven track record of success when applied both in the field and hospital.

I don't have the numbers but I do think there was a fairly high complication rate. In traumatic arrest it doesn't really matter but in peri-arrest it gets kind of tricky. You think there is a tamponade, go for it, then end up perforating the ventricle or causing iatrogenic tamponade when there wasn't one to being with then it's hard to justify unless you are sure they would have arrested otherwise. Complication rates are much lower with ultrasound guidance.
 

VentMonkey

Family Guy
5,729
5,043
113
Both FP-C course instructors I sat in with said they had each done maybe one in their careers--respectively--none of which, IIRC, had a stellar outcome discharge-wise.

It is pretty much a last ditch effort in the field with, or without U/S. I was taught how to do one in a cadaver lab without U/S guidance within a matter of minutes; hardly a realistic scenario.

The "skill" itself is not all that hard, it is the ramifications of such a skill that one needs to be prepared to deal with. Again, this is what separates the clinician from the technician.
 

RocketMedic

Californian, Lost in Texas
4,997
1,461
113
I don't have the numbers but I do think there was a fairly high complication rate. In traumatic arrest it doesn't really matter but in peri-arrest it gets kind of tricky. You think there is a tamponade, go for it, then end up perforating the ventricle or causing iatrogenic tamponade when there wasn't one to being with then it's hard to justify unless you are sure they would have arrested otherwise. Complication rates are much lower with ultrasound guidance.

Oh, if it's going to be done, I think it should be well-trained and US-guided. I do think it is good to have in the toolbox though.
 
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