How do we do this medicine thing and keep it simple?

So how do we do this thing? This company is dedicated not only to being on the edge of evidenced based medicine, but presenting material to those with no medical background in a simple, easy to understand, and non-intimidating format. My desire is to have people new to medicine come to this site and find simple answers to the basic questions that often get glossed over by others. It’s not that we don’t think they are important, we just often assume people already know the basics. To be honest, we could all use a little refresher o the basics from time to time.

So what are the basics? They used to be, literally, the ABC’s, airway, breathing, and circulation. Open the airway, give some breaths, and give or maintain a pulse. And who doesn’t like an easy to remember mantra like ABC??? It’s short, familiar, and easily repeatable. But, like all good medicine, smarter people than me blaze trails and discover new things and things change. After all, it’s called “practicing” medicine. So how does someone approach the sick or injured now? If not ABC then what? Again, our approach needs to be simple, easily remembered, and easily repeatable. And it also needs to be medically sound.

MARCH: MARCH is the newest acronym we use to “walk” us through a patient assessment. Massive bleeding, Airway, Respiratory, Circulation, and Head trauma/ Hypothermia. Easy to remember? Yes. Simple? Yes. Repeatable? Yes. Medically sound? Yes. How is it medically sound? That’s the big question. And that’s what I want to explore these next few weeks. Lets walk through the MARCH assessment and talk about what each part means and how to complete it. Also, lets talk about why we do what we do and not something more (or less). If you’re reading this and have questions ask them! If something doesn’t make since or you disagree let me know. Lets discover the simple beauty of MARCH.

Stay tuned. We will start with massive hemorrhage in the next post. If you can’t wait until then ten shoot me an email and we can get the ball rolling early!!