A 24-year-old woman arrives in the emergency department complaining that she has felt dizzy for the past month. On this occasion, she was in town shopping when she felt dizzy, and her mother brought her in.
Researchers have shown, in an animal model, that alterations in the technique of cardiopulmonary resuscitation improve blood flow to vital organs and increase survival of animals in cardiac arrest.
A 25-year-old man is involved in a motorcycle accident and suffers multisystem trauma. When the paramedics arrive on the scene, the patient has no blood pressure, pulse, or spontaneous respirations.
A “wino” with pneumonia and septic shock arrives in an emergency department, obviously requiring admission to an ICU bed, but the hospital has no available beds.