St. Emlyn´s - By Simon Carley - November 19, 2016
"This is just a quickie to support some local teaching in Virchester on chest drain insertion, or intercostal drains if you prefer additional consonants or chest tubes if you are from the land of the Trump. Anyway chest drains are one of those procedures that are rare enough that we need to think about, but common enough that we really should be expert in. There is also no doubt that having a clinician stab you in the chest, slice you open and then insert a tube before tying it to your skin is an unpleasant experience; it’s also dangerous as numerous reports like this one from the National Patient Safety Advisory Service and others state. People have done all sorts of things which are frequently spouted on ATLS courses; kebabing the heart, doing a liver biopsy, putting them in backwards….. it seems that if it can be messed up then someone, somewhere has probably done it.
Anyway, the point is that putting chest drains in requires a degree of preparation and training and that’s something that we are all interested in here at St.Emlyn’s so here are our top tips and thoughts on putting them in, keeping them in and making the experience much better for you and your patient..."