Quote:
Originally Posted by Dub
RF1: I am wondering if WS has made it into the civillian practice?
The Professor who is the major researcher responsible for WS's development gives a talk on it in one of his biochemistry lectures for M1s, as of this year he said it has been used in the MCV ER and is being carried by an ambulance department in Virginia - cannot remember which ambulance department.
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If by civilian you mean EMS/FR we were using it on our Tacmed team. I just removed it after hearing the presentation given at SOMA. We never had an opportunity to test it on an actual patient. I am looking at replacing all of our stock with Combat Gauze. I like this option because it looks like regular dressing when in the wound.... could get away with using on regular trauma calls. When I was at SOMA the manufacturer of the OLAES dressing was even discussing making the first few yards of their packing in their bandage GC. This would be a great product.. everything all in one package.
The system I work in only allows hemostatics and tourniquets to be used by SWAT medics. This decision was made by the trauma surgeons board and the agency medical directors all follow suite. I can understand their issue with hemostatics that are granular based but products like QC ACS+ and CG are easy to remove from the wound. I also understand that we have relatively short transport times but the use of a military type tourniquet seems to make perfect sense.
We are at a distinct disadvantage on this side by not having the benefit of live tissue training/testing when it comes to hemostatics so we try to get information from sources like this forum and SOMA. We have several local department members that were corpsmen who have used some of these products and given us good feedback. I always appreciate any information I get from you guys in the field.
Steve