IT’S TRAUMA TUESDAY is

a Free Weekly Newsletter

Brought to you by TCAR Education Programs

For nurses and other clinicians practicing anywhere

along the trauma care spectrum

Take a quick test of your trauma care knowledge

Article of the Week

Is it Time for a MAJOR SCI Practice Change?

For decades, emergency and trauma nurses were admonished to strictly adhere to spinal motion restriction (SMR) measures or risk paralyzing and killing our patients. Then, in 2018, a joint position statement from the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma (ACS-COT), the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), and the National Association of EMS Physicians (NAEMSP) advised there was NO role for SMR in penetrating trauma, and its role in blunt trauma was primarily for extrication and pre-hospital transport, NOT for in-hospital use.

Fast-forward to 2025. NAEMSP now advocates for an even bigger departure from past dogma, stating "... we believe that there is indisputable evidence that immobilization causes significant, and potentially life threatening, harms. . . [There is] no definitive evidence [of] clinical benefit to immobilization, or procedures designed to restrict movement. Further, and perhaps more important, in our review we found no definitive evidence that post-injury movement leads to the development of delayed neurological injury." Well, THAT should stimulate a whole lot of discussion about practice changes!

Click below to view the article or listen to a short AI generated article summary (6 min 31 sec).

Millin MG, Innes JC, King GD, et al. Prehospital Trauma Compendium: Prehospital Management of Spinal Cord Injuries - A NAEMSP Comprehensive Review and Analysis of the Literature. Prehosp Emerg Care. 2025:1-13.

Trauma Happenings

Alcohol Screening and Brief Intervention at the Bedside

Excessive alcohol use remains a critical public health issue, contributing to over 140,000 deaths and billions in economic losses annually—many linked to injury, emergency department visits, and workplace violence, especially in healthcare settings.

Nurses are uniquely positioned to mitigate these risks through the implementation of Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT or SBI), an evidence-based approach to identifying and addressing unhealthy alcohol use. Check out the American Nurse link below for an overview of the SBIRT process.

NEW! Trauma Tuesday Video Summaries

In this week's edition, we've added a short video summary of the Article of the Week. Although the topics selected are always relevant to trauma nursing, some are lengthy, dense, and filled with statistics, biochemistry, or methodology. 

The new Article of the Week Video Summaries will review the paper, distill its salient points, and focus on clinical implications for trauma nurses. If you haven't tried it yet, go back to the Article of the Week section near the top of this page and click the link.

You can reveal a letter or the entire word if you get stuck

A Quick Romp Through the History of Surgery

The practice of surgery, as we know it today, only began to take shape in the late 1800s, when anesthesia first became available and techniques slowly advanced beyond their primitive beginnings. In those early days, infection was extremely common and outcomes were often poor.

But centuries of experimentation have laid the groundwork for safer, more effective procedures. Today, innovations such as robotics, lasers, and microsurgery make it possible to treat conditions once thought to be untreatable. This article provides a timeline of notable surgical and medical advances from the Stone Age through the early 2020s. Click the link for more.

TCAR Education Programs
tcarprograms.org
info@tcarprograms.org
Office: (503) 608-4900
International Toll-Free: +1 800-800-2015

Copyright © 2025 TCAR Education Programs. All rights reserved.

You are receiving this email because you opted in by purchasing or registering for a course or subscribing to our newsletter on our website.

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe