Scenario
You are the consultant in charge of the emergency department in a tertiary hospital. The ambulance service calls at 1000 hours on a weekday warning that they are at the scene of a major motor vehicle crash. They have 6 patients – 5 adults and a 12-month-old infant, all in a serious condition. They will be arriving at your department in 10 minutes.
Question
Describe your response to this situation (100%)
Answer
FACEM SAQ Exam 2006.1 – Question 2
- The overall pass rate for this question was 29/40 (72.5%).
- Pass Criteria
- Examiners considered that being able to deal with such a situation is an important skill for an emergency physician.
- The question was broad but the expected answer focused on the managerial issues of recognizing and using available resources to cope with a disaster rather than the specifics of trauma care.
- The elements of a comprehensive answer were: confirm and recognize the potential disaster, liaise with the EMS, consider diversion of some cases (eg paediatric), constitute trauma teams, clear the ED as possible, hospital wide notification/involvement (eg trauma call, internal disaster), manage relatives/media and plans for some sort of standdown/debrief.
- Features of unsuccessful answers
- Failing answers neglected issues such as team constitution/allocation, did not notify widely (including other ED staff) and did not liaise with the EMS.
About Mike Cadogan
