- As a medical student you may not have come across head injury in any of your other placements. We see a lot of patients ranging from minor bumps in toddlers to open skull fractures. The formulation of Major Trauma Units, which normally have Neurosurgical centres co-located, means that most Severe Head Injury patients should bypass local hospitals to get to a centre which can offer definitive care.
- The problems with head injury is that it can by tricky to work out who has a significant head injury and even patients with ‘minor’ head injuries can have poor outcomes unless we manage them correctly.
- The SEMEP (Southampton Emergency Medical Education Project) video below gives you a great introduction to head injury management
- For a more comprehensive overview check out the NICE guidance on head injury [Jan 2014] – This applies to UK practice and this gives us recommendations on who to CT and head injury management.
Minor Head Injuries from SEMEP on Vimeo.
Useful links to other resources
- Doctors.net.uk Acute head injury
- BMJ Learning Head injury: a guide to management
- Life in the fast lane Traumatic Brain Injury & Minor Head Injury