Description
The hour that decides the outcome
Infarct size, neurological recovery after arrest, whether a dissection extends — much of what determines a cardiac patient’s eventual outcome is settled within sixty minutes of presentation, usually by whoever happens to be present rather than by a specialist.
For a large part of our directory, that person is them, and the specialist is a phone call and a transfer away.
Written as ordered actions
Sixteen chapters, each a sequence rather than a description: what to establish, in what order, what to give, what to prepare, and the specific point at which the plan changes if there is no response. Pathophysiology is not what a clinician lacks at a trolley at four in the morning.
Stabilise-and-transfer decisions
Because many members work without on-site intervention, transfer is treated as a clinical decision in its own right — who needs a catheter laboratory within ninety minutes, who can be stabilised and moved at a safer pace, what must be done before the ambulance departs, and what to hand over.
Scope
Acute coronary presentation and reperfusion. Arrest and post-resuscitation care. Unstable arrhythmia. Pulmonary oedema. Shock, including the compensated patient. Aortic emergency. Tamponade. Hypertensive crisis. Acute valve failure.
PDF, 419 pages, lifetime access, from CardiologyBooks.com.
