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"Advanced Trauma Life Support" is a training program in the management of acute trauma cases (requiring surgical emergency care), developed in 1976 by the American College of Surgeons. The program has been adopted worldwide in over 30 countries; its goal is to teach a simplified and standardized approach to trauma patients.

The system consists of different steps. The first step (the most important one) is to make sure that all body main functions are working properly and then take care of the patient injuries.

ATLS has its origins in the United States in 1976, when orthopaedic surgeon Dr. James K. Styner, piloting a light aircraft, crashed his plane into a field in Nebraska. His wife was killed instantly and three of his four children received critical injuries. He carried out the initial triage of his children at the crash site. Dr. Styner had to flag down a car to transport him to the nearest hospital; upon arrival, he found it closed. Even once the hospital was opened and a doctor called in, he found that the emergency care provided at the small regional hospital where they were treated was inadequate and inappropriate.

Upon returning to work, he set about developing a system for saving lives in medical trauma situations. Jim Styner and his colleague Paul 'Skip' Collicott, with assistance from Advanced Cardiac Life Support personnel and the Lincoln Medical Education Foundation, produced the initial ATLS course. In 1980 the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma adopted ATLS and began US and international dissemination of the course.

Since its inception, ATLS has become rather standard for trauma care in American emergency departments. Since emergency physicians and other advanced practitioners use ATLS as their model for trauma care it makes sense that programs for other providers caring for trauma would be designed to interface well with ATLS. The Society of Trauma Nurses has developed the Advanced Trauma Care for Nurses (ATCN) course for Registered Nurses. ATCN meets concurrently with ATLS and shares some of the lecture portions. This approach allows for medical and nursing care to be well coordinated with one another as both the medical and nursing care providers have been trained in essentially the same model of care. Similarly, the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians has developed the Prehospital Trauma Life Support (PHTLS) course. This course is based around ATLS and allows the trauma care provided by the PHTLS trained paramedics to transition smoothly into the care provided by the ATLS and ATCN trained poviders in the hospital.

• Trauma team

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