Should students stop at accidents?
Editor - It is always difficult to know
whether you should stop at an incident
(road traffic accident or otherwise) or simply
drive on. Much of the uncertainty is due to
not believing that you will know what to do.
As medical students there are only a few
things we can do - knowing these should
help us in our decision. The most important
is safety first. This begins with parking
safely, approaching with caution, and ensuring the safety of others - for example,
getting people off the road, etc. After that
the only thing we can realistically do is ABC
(airway, breathing, circulation), resuscitate if
necessary, and ensure that professional help
is called. We can also stop bleeding by
applying pressure but beyond that, without
any medical equipment, there is little else
we can do. Although this may seem rather
basic, it is a lot compared with what the
general public can do.
I have been at several incidents, including one rush hour traffic incident where a
pedestrian was run over, and a stabbing. I
adopted the same procedure (ABC) with
both. Even this little effort was more than
the crowd could do. Doing this served to
reassure the people standing around and
especially the victim. An ambulance arrived
quickly in both cases.
I have since done a three months' placement in accident and emergency and have
been on the advanced life support,
advanced trauma life support, and
advanced paediatric life support courses -
all have proved invaluable to my confidence. I have found that a lot of the anxiety
regarding stopping was related to not
knowing what to do. however, just knowing
that there is little realistically that we can do
before the professionals arrive should boost
our confidence.
Naseer Ahmad, fourth year medical student, university of Liverpool
Email: naseerahmad@barclays.net
studentBMJ 2001;09:217-260 July ISSN 0966-6494
