How do trauma surgeons deal with the fact that the patients they operate on probably haven’t fasted the night before given that trauma patients don’t know in advance they’ll be having surgery?

Question

I know that with elective surgeries, patients have to fast the night before to prevent vomiting when they go under anesthetic, but I was wondering how this concern is navigated in trauma or emergency surgeries in which patients definitely didn’t fast the night before? Do they just try to deal with the vomit or is there a special procedure to prevent vomiting from occurring?

In: 1727

Answer 1

The problem is that we’re talking trauma surgery. It’s all risk vs. benifit.

If they gotta do something, they gotta do it; there’s no avoiding it. If a problem occurs, they can deal with it when they get there, if they get there.

That said, the main problem with eating before surgery is just that when they tube you, it can kinda cause you to throw up, and they don’t want you to blow chunks up their pipe.

Anesthesia can help with it, but ultimately, see paragraphs 1 & 2