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Originally Posted by Surgicalcric
Needle Thorocentesis doesnt reinflate the lung; its just a tool to buy some time, temporarily relieve the tension from within the thorax, til the patient can be moved to a safer location, or one more suited for placing chest tubes. The definitive treatment is still the tube thorocostomy.
Crip
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Unless you are on positive pressure, i.e., a ventilator or are being bagged via an endo tracheal tube....another reason I like the one way valves we use (walmart fish tank) to not allow air back in once it escapes the pleural cavity. Most people tolerate a simple pneumothorax very well....don't like it for long periods of time, but generally can maintain adequate oxygenation and ventilation for awhile...it's the tension that gets you. We carry a Cook wire wrapped decompression neeedle since the standard jelco 16 G 5cm needles love to bend and kink...we teach and preach, once decompressed, re-eval and if ANY changes to RR, HR, BP, decompress again....and again....and again.
ss
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'Revel in action, translate perceptions into instant judgements, and these into actions that are irrevocable, monumentous and dreadful - all this with lightning speed, in conditions of great stress and in an environment of high tension:what is expected of "us" is the impossible, yet we deliver just that.
(adapted from: Sherwin B. Nuland, MD, surgeon and author: The Wisdom of the Body, 1997 )
Education is the anti-ignorance we all need to better treat our patients. ss, 2008.
The blade is so sharp that the incision is perfect. They don't realize they've been cut until they're out of the fight: A Surgeon Warrior. I use a knife to defend life and to save it. ss (aka traumadoc)
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