This is Only a Drill: The Crashing Traumatic Brain, an Approach to Care when Neurosurgery is Not Available

Traumatic brain injury is one the leading causes of disability in the United States. The acute management of traumatic brain injury is designed to optimize the patient’s neurological outcome with emergent data-driven intervention. This lecture discusses a tiered approach to care and interventions to prevent secondary injury when your specialty surgery consult is unavailable and decompensation is imminent. We will identify indications for emergent burr hole in the emergency department as a life-saving measure aimed at temporizing a critical patient until definitive care is available.