I'd be careful of delving too much into the actual conversations of healthcare types about a pt, or you'll end up writing something like this:
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJuP9c3c2MI[/YOUTUBE]
Other than the fact that it would be very hard for a non-healthcare professional to write that sort of thing, you also have a lot of slang and location/speciality based differences. I had to learn a whole new set of terminology to understand what the hell people were on about on this board because of the differences between Australia and the states. To add to that I have a friend who is a nurse on a cardiothoracic ward and she can't understand a word of the emergency/ambulance talk. I can't understand half of what she's on about. Not because of the subject matter, but because of the colloquialisms.
If you really wanna heavily research it, here's the skinny. What was done first would depend very much on how deeply unconscious she was and the probable cause of her unconsciousness. The ABCs come first but realistically it all pretty much happens at the same time. The team of doctors and nurses would be looking to answer the following both to keep the person alive and to collect information about why the person is unconscious :
-Can she protect her own airway: this has a lot to do with how deeply unconscious she is. (look up intubation and Glasgow Coma Scale on wiki).
-Is she breathing deep enough and often enough to get enough oxygen and blow off enough carbon dioxide.. (wiki: "Oxygen Saturation"/SpO2/pulse oximetry, End Tidal CO2 or arterial blood gas ).
-Is the relationship between blood pressure and heart rate appropriate such the enough blood is getting to the important organs (wiki: "shock" and "perfusion").
-What is her exact level of unconsciousness, pupil appearance and reactivity and other neurological observations.
-All her clothes cut off and body examined looking for relevant information or injury.
-Intravenous access would be a must and would happen simultaneously. Once that was established blood would be drawn for tests.
-Some of the following may be inserted depending on findings and probable causes of illness: breathing tube (endotracheal intubation), tube into the stomach via the mouth or nose (orogastric or nasogastric tube), into a main vein near the collar bone, neck or groin and up into the heart to monitor various pressures, give certain drugs and measure how well the heart is working ("central line", CVC, pulmonary artery catheter, swan-ganz catheter), into a small artery to accurately monitor blood pressure (arterial BP, "art line"), into the urethra to measure urine output (more important that it sounds).
- Again depending on the information collected there would then be further investigations. ECG(what was called a "cardiac 12 lead" earlier in the thread) investigates the electrical activity of the heart (abnormal rhythms, heart attacks, abnormal size or electrical conduction and can also show abnormalities when things are wrong elsewhere in the body too). Cat scan of the head looking for blockages or bleeds (strokes, they happen in young people too). Blood tests measuring electrolytes (salts), sugar, oxygen, carbon dioxide, acidity, number of different blood cells, ability to clot, proteins, bacteria, various illicit drugs (particularly in an unconscious young person, etc
- Chest xray looking at the lungs and heart and rib cage.
- Ultra sounds of the abdomen and heart.
Wiki this stuff and you should have a reasonable idea of what will go on. One further point: if you're writing dialogue for docs/nurses, don't use formal terminology. Nobody says, "nurse can I please have you perform a 12 lead electrocardiogram, draw blood to measure the ammount of postassium, sodium, then we'll get a cat scan of his head, while I perform a rapid sequence induction for the purposes of airway capture and mechanical ventilation". It would be more along the lines of, "Umm nah we'll tube...Sharon can you do drugs, Mike have we go that fluid up? Yep, righto, lets get some bloods first, tube...yeah 6.5, ahh I hate these new bloody masks... ah and then CT brain if they're ready down there". Most conversation is clarification and discussion because mostly everyone knows what needs to be done. Eg. A doc won't have to ask for IV access, but a nurse may say something like, "Its looking a bit sparse, are you happy with 20?" How you can really replicate that though without spending a lot of time around docs and nurses, I don't know.
"Stefan Timmermans: Sudden Death and the Myth of CPR" is a pretty good look at the emergency department through the eyes of a lay person (he's a sociologist and makes a lot of very interesting obsevations.
I have something of a special interest in how medical procedures/conditions/treatments are explained to lay persons so feel free to pm me and keep us updated on how its going. I'd love to read it when its done, or if you want advice
