Original Article

Emergency Room Neurosurgery: Modern Time Errors

Authors: I Karampelas, MD, K N. Fountas, MD, PHD

Abstract

The young neurosurgery resident was heading for another on-call in a large tertiary medical center. His duties for the next 12 consecutive hours would include, besides caring for the neurosurgical floor and neurologic intensive care unit patients, numerous emergency room consultations. No easy access to primary health care was afforded during the night, and cases ranging from mild head injury to severe subarachnoid hemorrhage would arrive mingled up by chance at the emergency room. It was 5 minutes to 8 in the evening, and his shift was about to start. The nurses were piling up in his box the registration sheets of the people waiting for his evaluation. He entered the place with no delusions about what to expect—it was a Saturday night call.

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References

1. Wilford Trotter, quoted by Beeson P. The Nature of Medicine, in Beeson P, McDermott W (eds):Textbook of Medicine. Philadelphia, WB Saunders, 1975, ed 14 pp 1–4.