Blast injuries

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I've been very blessed this year, having found that USMLE aside I am quite able to cope with the workload that comes with the final year of medical school in Australia. One of the last cases I am reviewing in the current set of viva questions is the difference in management of burns due to direct thermal injury and those due to blast injury (ie. explosions). It's very interesting because in my 6 years of med school I have only been exposed to a major trauma case once so I've never actually been taught about what to do in the event of an explosion. I found an informative page here by the Department of Defense (Australia) and have been pouring over it tonight because it's just so interesting to come across a medical situation that you've really just never thought about before!

In other news, I was reading the BBC news today when I came across a program called The London Pathway, which aims to improve healthcare provision to homeless people. After my trip to New York homelessness has become an issue that is near and dear to me so I'd definitely like to look into this program more closely and see if there are things I could learn and perhaps implement one day when I am in a position to positively impact the care of homeless people in my community.

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