Lower Extremity Trauma PDF

Preface

Increasingly, urban trauma is becoming a major health care issue. Large emergency departments are inundated with patients with multiple injuries, requiring state-of-the-art care. Most of these complex injuries involve trauma to the extremities, often due to motor vehicle accidents. In a study by MacKenzie et al. (1), it was shown that lower extremity injuries accounted for about 40% of the charges for motor vehicle trauma treatment in a given year.

This book is designed to be a guide for the evaluation and management by physicians, nurses, students, and support personnel involved in the care of severely injured patients. I am very pleased to have an outstanding group of contributors from the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital Medical Center. University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital serves as the primary Level 1 trauma referral center for South Florida. With such a tremendous volume of trauma patients, University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital and its staff manages some of the most complicated lower extremity trauma problems on a daily basis.

University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital employs a comprehensive system that allows for the coordination of care amongst multiple surgical services. These services include trauma/critical care, orthopedic trauma, vascular, and plastic surgery—all areas thoroughly covered within this text.