Introduction The experience of general surgery residents with major, open surgical procedures is low compared with historical norms and continues to decline. Many reasons for this have been adduced, including a decrease in resident training hours, nonoperative management of many…
Trauma was the first medical specialty to regionalize health care delivery to specialized centers and to systematically measure health care outcomes. The first trauma scores were designed for a specific purpose: to standardize injury descriptions and rank injury severity to…
Throughout history, wars have resulted in the development of medical care techniques that have been later adopted successfully in civilian trauma. Colombia as a whole has been involved since the early 1960s in nonconventional warfare fueled by the cocaine drug…
Unintentional injury is the leading cause of death and disability among those aged 1 to 44 years in the United States. Suicide is the second leading cause of death in those aged 10 to 34, and homicide is the third…
Injury is increasingly recognized as a disease, with predictable risk factors, treatment options, and outcomes. However, it is also often thought to be a comorbid condition of another disease, that being excessive alcohol use, illicit drug use, or misuse of…
The urge to prognosticate following trauma is as old as the practice of medicine. This is not surprising, because injured patients and their families wish to know if death is likely, and physicians have long had a natural concern not…
Formed in 1922 with a legacy as one of the oldest standing committees of the American College of Surgeons, the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma has vigorously advocated for improvements in care for the injured patient. In 1966,…
Modern trauma care consists of three primary components: prehospital care, acute surgical care or hospital care, and rehabilitation. Ideally, a society, through state (department, province, regional, etc.) government, should provide a trauma system that ensures all three components. The purpose…
Physical therapy, compression garments, manual lymphatic drainage, and intermittent pneumatic compression pumps are currently the first line of treatment in patients with chronic lymphedema. Current guidelines recommend that surgical management can be attempted in selected patients who have failed conservative…
Managing the complex care related to lymphedema requires a thorough understanding of the associated anatomy, pathophysiology, risk factors, clinical presentation, and diagnostic tests. In addition, understanding individual risk factors and comorbidities allows one to develop an optimal management strategy for…