In the United
States, trauma is the number one killer of kids. In the world, especially the
third world, but depending on the country, it is second or third to infectious
diseases and birth-related problems.
As those issues improve and sanitation
improves and vaccinations improve, trauma is rapidly becoming a greater
percentage of the deaths of children than ever before. Fortunately it's because
the other diseases are becoming less frequent and less fatal. It's good that
they're becoming less frequent and less fatal, but it's bad that trauma is not
becoming less frequent and less fatal. Trauma is, in fact, globally becoming
more frequent. It is more fatal in many parts of the world, injury per injury,
than it is here.
There are several reasons for that.
The first reason that it’s globally becoming more common is as you
industrialize countries and the economies of countries improve, there's a lot
more traffic. There's a lot more development needed in the supporting
infrastructure: in the safety, in the emergency response, the treatment
knowledge, and all the pieces that we've taken for granted in this country for
years. The infrastructure is not there in a lot of countries, especially third
world countries.
There are a lot of transportation
injuries that are fatal to children. There are a lot more fires that are fatal
to children, and sadly, war. There's a lot of war. I participated in a global
web symposium last week that connected surgeons, emergency physicians and
nurses to share knowledge about techniques and experiences that can help
everyone. In these webinars, we have talked a lot about blast injury effects,
and some other things that you would not otherwise know about. Part of the
reason is that citizens and physicians of this country need to be made aware of
it.
It's rare here, but we have our Boston
Marathon bombings, and when these catastrophes occur, people need to be able to
step up and know. You need to train and drill on things that are not common.
Also, you need to learn from the experiences of people in our military and other
places, experts that can inform the physicians in the world where these
injuries are not uncommon. Without the international and convenient capability
of the webinar medium, we wouldn’t be able to gather this knowledge or connect
with such a broad audience.
Reducing the number of children dying from
critical injuries is easier to attempt with the current technology for these
webinars that can transmit knowledge worldwide. There is a huge appetite for
this kind of knowledge, especially because it’s available and of interest to our
colleagues around the world. These medical professionals
need educational opportunities about pediatric trauma.
Additionally, there are some types of
injuries that are relatively rare for us that other people around the world see
that we need to know about. There are brilliant, creative people who are
treating and taking care of patients in very austere conditions with very few
resources who have come up with ideas that will be helpful to the other members
of the world community. They will be helpful to us even though we have more
resources in the highly-industrialized world.
The pediatric trauma web seminar I
participated in is the busiest one that the provider, GlobalCast MD, hosts. We
had approximately 1,400 attendees from 26 countries around the world. Of all
the pediatric health seminars that they host, this is the most well-attended,
most highly subscribed, by quite a margin. It just goes to show how ubiquitous
the problem is and how thirsty people are in the world for these solutions.
Good smart ideas are still good smart
ideas. Creating this network, this community of individuals committed to
improving the fate of injured children is in-and-of-itself a good thing. It is
a good thing at an intellectual level. It's a good thing at a humanitarian
level. It's just the right thing to do.
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