Major trauma resuscitation — the team-based systematic approach

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• The major trauma patient is resuscitated by a team with allocated roles, not by a solo clinician — the team leader, the airway, the procedures, the scribe and the nurse each have a defined function
• The primary survey is performed before the imaging — the CT scan comes after the immediately life-threatening conditions are identified and treated
• A shocked trauma patient who does not respond to the blood-product resuscitation has an uncontrolled source of bleeding — take them to the theatre, not to the CT scanner
• The secondary survey is the head-to-toe examination performed AFTER the primary survey has stabilised the patient — never before
• The elderly and the anticoagulated trauma patient may be seriously injured from a low-energy mechanism — the threshold for the trauma team activation is lower