The Dilemma of Increasing Media Scrutiny on Older-Adult Driving Fitness

As several highly publicized traffic collisions occurred in 2003 and 2004, the nation began to give more attention to the issue of older drivers. After several older-driver collisions, California, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Massachusetts examined their license renewal and driver testing policies for both the young and old. We describe these major traffic incidents and discuss their impact on the political, medical, and social forums

Pedestrian Injuries: Emergency Care Considerations

Traffic-related pedestrian injuries are a growing public health threat worldwide. The global economic burden of motor vehicle collisions and pedestrian injuries totals $500 billion.1 In 2004, there were 4,641 pedestrian deaths and over 70,000 injuries in the United States.2 Injury patterns vary depending on the age, gender and socioeconomic status of the individual. Children, older adults, and those of lower socioeconomic status are most affected. The burden of injury upon the individual, families and society is frequently overwhelming. Although pedestrian injuries and deaths are relatively on the decline in the United States, this is not universally true throughout the world. It requires particular attention by emergency medicine physicians, public health experts and policy makers

The Crisis in Emergency and Trauma Care in California and the United States

A crisis affecting every geographic region and every socioeconomic segment of the United States is threatening the future viability of emergency and trauma care in America. As the financial and social burden of providing trauma care has fallen on individual states, hospitals and physicians, record numbers of emergency departments and trauma centers have been forced to close. The ultimate cost of these closures falls upon patients who will receive inadequate emergency and trauma care. In the fall of 2004 King Drew Medical Center Trauma Services, the second largest trauma center in Los Angeles County, closed. Continuing on this path may threaten the emergency and trauma care in the United States, touted as one of the finest in the world. This article provides a general overview of the trauma center crisis in California and reviews the history of the problem and its future implications in California as well as the United States

Bilateral Cervical Spine Facet Fracture-Dislocation

reprints available through open access at www.westjem.or

Need for Injury-Prevention Education in Medical School Curriculum

Injury is the leading cause of death and disability among the U.S. population aged 1 to 44 years. In 2006 more than 179,000 fatalities were attributed to injury. Despite increasing awareness of the global epidemic of injury and violence, a considerable gap remains between advances in injury-prevention research and prevention knowledge that is taught to medical students. This article discusses the growing need for U.S medical schools to train future physicians in the fundamentals of injury prevention and control. Teaching medical students to implement injury prevention in their future practice should help reduce injury morbidity and mortality. Deliberate efforts should be made to integrate injury-prevention education into existing curriculum. Key resources are available to do this. Emergency physicians can be essential advocates in establishing injury prevention training because of their clinical expertise in treating injury. Increasing the number of physicians with injury- and violence- prevention knowledge and skills is ultimately an important strategy to reduce the national and global burden of injury