Medical conference in the surrounding area of Berlin on the Landgut Stober estate
Groß Behnitz – Under the motto “10 Years – A Colourful Mix – Pitfalls in Emergency Medicine”, a series of lectures was held on Saturday at Landgut Stober in Groß Behnitz, presenting case studies from emergency medicine and discussing current challenges, new techniques and rare medical conditions. Around 150 medical professionals from Germany attended. The audience had to show strong nerves when confronted with extremely graphic photographs.
Emergency physicians have to make split-second decisions that often determine whether people live or die. In ambulances and emergency departments, they are confronted with severe injuries that require immediate action. Petra Wilke has just taken over the emergency medicine department at Havelland Clinics and is now Co-Managing Director of Rettungsdienst Havelland GmbH. She brought the “Emergency Medicine Symposium” to Nauen.
SHOCKING EXAMPLES FROM EVERYDAY MEDICAL PRACTICE
It is astonishing to see how emergency physicians deal with situations in their everyday work that are sometimes difficult for laypeople to comprehend. When discussing which medical procedures should take priority for motorcycle accident victims with severe bleeding and open fractures, doctors even quoted Schiller's “The Robbers”: “The catastrophe is not what is coming, but what is already here.”
After eating salmon past its use-by date, a woman first complained of vomiting and diarrhoea, then of visual disturbances and muscle weakness. Physician Martin Pin: “A case of botulism.” The bacterium Clostridium botulinum produces one of the most potent toxins in the world, which is also injected into the foreheads of the rich and famous as Botox. It causes muscle paralysis. “We have about one or two cases of botulism a year,” said Martin Pin.
LECTURES WITH HUMOROUS TITLES
Medical professionals have their own dark sense of humour. Lecture titles like “Big Bang,” “Now the Party Really Gets Started,” “When the Bomb Explodes” or “Explosive Mixture” were often just light-hearted introductions to subjects far removed from routine emergency medicine. Katja Trommler and Richard Anders' lecture “Let It Crash – But Broken Glass Doesn't Always Bring Good Luck” was about severe head injuries. Their examples silenced the audience.
SEE YOU NEXT YEAR
An elderly man tried to inflate his wheelbarrow tyre using the compressed-air pump at a petrol station – the wheelbarrow exploded, causing devastating injuries to his skull. A man attempting to take his own life put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. He survived, but the doctors faced the enormous challenge of reconstructing his injuries.
“The Emergency Medicine Symposium should find a new home at Landgut Stober. It will continue in 2019,” said Petra Wilke.
By Carsten Scheibe
Source:
http://www.maz-online.de/Lokales/Havelland/Nauen/Der-schwarze-Humor-der-Notfallaerzte