Deck 1: Trauma and Trauma Systems

Question 1

Which of the following accounts for the highest number of trauma deaths in the United States of America?

A) Motor vehicle crashes
B) Falls
C) Assaults
D) Firearms injuries

Answer 1

Motor vehicle crashes

Question 2

Modern medicine treats trauma as a:

A) crisis.
B) disease.
C) life threat.
D) medical problem.

Answer 2

disease.

Question 3

Which of the following is NOT an example of trauma?

A) An abrasion to the knee
B) Chest pain
C) Cerebral contusion
D) A stab wound to the abdomen

Answer 3

Chest pain

Question 4

In addition to handling all types of specialty trauma, which level of trauma center provides continuing medical and public education programs?

A) IV
B) III
C) I
D) II

Question 5

The purpose of determining the mechanism of injury and the index of suspicion for the trauma patient at the same time is to allow you to:

A) decide whether to transport the patient.
B) identify comorbid factors.
C) document a complete scene size-up.
D) anticipate your patient's injuries.

Question 6

Which of the following trauma patients would be classified as "stable"?

A) Patient with facial burns and associated hoarseness and stridor
B) Patient who is unconscious, with no ventilations and no pulse
C) Patient with controlled bleeding from a laceration to the right forearm from a glass cut
D) Patient with closed, bilateral femur fractures but adequate ventilations

Question 7

As a paramedic, your role in trauma care consists of all of the following, EXCEPT:

A) providing rapid transport to appropriate facilities.
B) promoting injury prevention.
C) providing care to seriously injured trauma patients.
D) providing surgical interventions to stop hemorrhage.

Question 8

Trauma triage criteria application, field skill performance, response times, patient assessment, patient care and transport are all monitored through which of the following?

A) Quality improvement
B) Trauma registry
C) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
D) Public healthcare model

Question 9

The leading cause of death in people under age 44 is:

A) heart attack.
B) trauma.
C) cancer.
D) cardiovascular disease.

Question 10

Which of the following is the best, most cost-effective way for EMS personnel to help reduce trauma-related morbidity and mortality?

A) Participate in injury prevention programs.
B) Keep up to date on trauma management knowledge and skills.
C) Transport all trauma patients to a trauma center.
D) Provide complete patient care reports so that accurate data can be entered into the trauma registry.

Question 11

Which of the following is the best definition of the Golden Period?

A) The ideal time it takes to assess a multi-system trauma patient
B) The ideal timeframe from time of injury until surgery
C) The ideal time from requesting a helicopter to it landing on scene
D) The ideal timeframe from call dispatch to arrival on scene

Question 12

Which of the following requires immediate transport to a trauma center?

A) A 40-year-old who fell 12 feet from a garage roof with a radius fracture
B) A 36-year-old woman in a motor vehicle crash who has a blood pressure of 100/60
C) A 22-year-old soccer player with lower leg pain
D) A 47-year-old involved in a motor vehicle crash that resulted in the death of his passenger

Question 13

Which of the following physical findings indicates the need for immediate transport?

A) Vital signs: systolic blood pressure 80, respiratory rate 8
B) Glasgow Coma Scale score of 15
C) Second-degree burns involving 9 percent of total body surface area in an adult patient
D) Fractured right femur

Question 14

Which of the following statements about trauma is FALSE?

A) Life-threatening injuries may exist with little external evidence.
B) Dramatic-appearing extremity injuries draw the paramedic's focus away from life-threatening injuries.
C) Life-threatening injury occurs in less than 10 percent of trauma patients.
D) Most patients with life-threatening trauma will have sustained external injury to the extremities (arms/legs).

Question 15

A trauma center that has surgical care capability available at all times and can handle all but the most seriously injured specialty and multisystem trauma patients is a Level ________ trauma center.

A) III
B) I
C) IV
D) II

Question 16

Which level of trauma facility has minimal surgical support but can stabilize before transferring to a higher-level trauma facility?

A) III
B) II
C) IV
D) I

Question 17

Which of the following patients is NOT a candidate for air medical transport?

A) Combative trauma patient
B) Seriously injured patient with cardiac tamponade
C) Patient with prolonged extrication time
D) Burn patient with over 50 percent second-degree burns

Question 18

Which of the following acts resulted in the development of modern EMS systems?

A) Ryan White Act
B) Highway Safety Act of 1966
C) Good Samaritan Act
D) The Trauma Care Systems Planning and Development Act of 1990

Question 19

Upon arriving on a scene where the mechanism of injury indicates a potentially life-threatening injury, you should employ which of the following interventions to best help deliver the care that is needed?

A) Reevaluate the scene size-up.
B) Initiate transport immediately, delaying more extensive care until you are en route.
C) Ask a surgeon to respond to the scene.
D) Call immediately for air medical transport to reduce the "Golden Period."

Question 20

Establishment of educational programs and improved auto technology are examples of which part of the public health model?

A) Surveillance
B) Risk identification
C) Intervention
D) Implementation

Question 21

According to the Haddon Matrix, which of the following would be a pre-event host factor affecting the risk for injury in a vehicle collision?

A) Level of EMS providers responding to the scene
B) Presence of crash barriers near bridge abutments
C) Texting and/or talking on a cellphone while driving
D) Advanced automatic collision notification

Question 22

Which level of trauma facility strictly stabilizes trauma patients and prepares to transport, often by helicopter, to a more distant and higher-level trauma center?

A) I
B) II
C) IV
D) III

Question 23

Which level of trauma facility can provide neurosurgery, microsurgery, and care for multisystem trauma?

A) III
B) II
C) I
D) IV

Question 24

Which of the following best differentiates medical and trauma patient assessment?

A) There is no concept for "medical load and go" patients.
B) Trauma triage guidelines are not critical with medical patients.
C) Scene safety is not an issue with the medical patient.
D) Assessing breath sounds is not crucial to trauma assessment.

Question 25

You assess a trauma patient who has an airway that cannot be maintained or secured. How should this patient be classified?

A) Critical
B) Unstable
C) Potentially unstable
D) Stable

Question 26

Which of the following is a "mental summation of suspected injuries based on the event analysis"?

A) Index of injury
B) Index of suspicion
C) Newton's First Law of Motion
D) Mechanism of injury

Question 27

Which of the following mechanisms would yield the greatest index of suspicion for serious injury?

A) Helmeted bicyclist losing control and falling off his bike onto a grassy surface at 15 miles per hour
B) Adult falling 5 feet from a ladder and landing in the mud
C) Seventy-mile-per-hour motor vehicle crash with partial ejection
D) Pedestrian struck by a car travelling 5 miles/hour

Question 28

Which of the following patients does NOT require specialty-center capabilities beyond that offered by a trauma center?

A) A 67-year-old with second- and third-degree burns over 50 percent of the body
B) A 25-year-old with amputation of three fingers
C) A 4-year-old with a closed-head injury
D) A 22-year-old with bilateral open femur fractures

Question 29

Which of the following is the only way to determine which patient care procedures benefit trauma patients?

A) Surveillance
B) Risk identification
C) Implementation
D) Evaluation

Question 30

Which of the following is an acceptable way of reducing prehospital time to maximize the use of the "Golden Period" for trauma patients?

A) Skip spinal immobilization in the blunt trauma patient.
B) Start all IVs on the scene to allow for more rapid transport.
C) Load the patients and begin transport before doing a primary assessment.
D) Call for air medical transport, if indicated.