Trauma Assessment and Fluid Resuscitation

1. The order every trauma call runs in

So every trauma call, no matter what walks through the door, runs the same order. Safety first — yours and your patient's. Then you call for the resources you're going to need, early, before you're committed to a call you can't handle alone.

Next comes kinematics. The mechanism of injury tells you what to suspect before you've laid a hand on the patient. A fall from a roof and a low-speed fender bender put you on two different levels of suspicion before you even open the door.

From there you're identifying and managing life threats in order: airway, with cervical spinal motion restriction maintained the whole time. Breathing and oxygenation. Then you control external hemorrhage and treat for shock — keep the patient warm, splint what's broken.

That last step, keeping the patient warm, is not comfort care. Hold onto that. It comes back.

Spinal motion restriction, transport decisions, the history, and the secondary survey come after life threats are handled, not before. "Do no further harm" closes the list, and it's not filler — it's a reminder that every intervention you add has a cost.

The exam fact: the Platinum 10 Minutes is the named scene-time target for a critical trauma patient. Airway, life-threatening hemorrhage, chest seals, and extrication earn you time on scene. Everything else — IVs, splinting, the secondary survey — happens en route. If an answer choice has you starting a line before you move, that answer is wrong on timing alone.