For the purposes of academic discussion, do you think there would ever be a possibility of a ED bypass for trauma, going directly to an OR sort of like a STEMI ed bypass.
Any thoughts?
Our level I trauma center has the ability to do this. They even have a name for it. It's truly very rare, though. (So much that I don't even know the name they use for it.)
One of the few times it's ever been done (I've been full time in this system for over 10 years) was one of my friends had a patient that was home after some major abdominal surgery. He tripped, and caught his fresh wound on the corner of the table, ripping it wide open. My friend arrived, and was level headed. When he arrived at the trauma center, straddling the gurney, with his hands in the guy's open belly, after requesting a trauma alert, the conversation went something like this:
Surgeon: Hey paramedic, whatcha got a hold of there?
Paramedic: Doc, I think it's his mesenteric artery.
Surgeon: That's good. Don't change a thing. Keep the gurney going, we'll go right to the OR.
What type of situations? The big one I can think of is a dissecting aneurysm.
Even here, you have to find out for sure first if it's a dissection, which means a trip to the CT scanner. And some dissections are managed medically.