Medical emergencies

A medical emergency is an injuryor illnessthat poses an immediate threat to a person's health or life which requires help from a doctoror hospital. The doctor's specialization of emergency medicineincludes techniques for effective handling of medical emergencies and resuscitation of patients.

Response

The proper way to handle a medical emergency is to activate emergency medical servicesby calling for helpusing a local emergency telephone number, such as 911 in Canada or the United States, 999 in the UK, 112 in most of continental Europe, 119 in South Koreaand Japan, 000 in Australia and 111 in New Zealand. Operators will generally require the caller's name and location and some information on person that is being called about (level of consciousness, injuries, name if known, chronic medical illnesses if known).

Those trained to perform first aidcan act within their expertise, while those who are not do best to remain calm and stay with the person. Crowding is generally unhelpful, unless the presence of others is needed. Evacuatingthe victim requires special skills, and is generally best left to professionals, unless there is no other alternative (as in wilderness first aid). Self-transport should be to the nearest emergency room.

In the absence of breathing or a palpable heartbeat, artificial respirationand cardiopulmonary resuscitation(CPR) may be immediately required to save the victim's life. Emergency medical technicians, Outdoor Emergency Caretechnicians or paramedicscan use airwaymanagement techniques to help a person who is not breathing.

Clinical response

Within hospital settings, an adequate staff is generally present to deal with the average emergency situation. Emergency medicinephysicians have training to deal with most medical emergencies, and maintain CPRand ACLScertifications. In disasters or complex emergencies, most hospitals have protocols to summon on-site and off-site staff rapidly.

Both emergency room and inpatient medical emergencies follow the basic protocol of Advanced Cardiac Life Support. Irrespective of the nature of the emergency, adequate blood pressureand oxygenationare required before the cause of the emergency can be eliminated. Possible exceptions include the clamping of arteriesin severe hemorrhage.

See also

• List of medical emergencieses:Medicina de emergencia

fr:Urgences

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical+emergencies Wikipedia article Medical emergencies.