On May 20, the professional holiday – World Trauma Day is celebrated annually.
The Greek origin of the term «traumatology» reveals its content in a broad sense – is a science that studies wounds and injuries, their prevention and methods of treatment.
Traumatology is associated with various fields of medicine, and this connection is determined by the location of the injury itself, that is, that part of the body or organ that is injured as a result of mechanical stress, the circumstances of the injury, its current and possible consequences, the general condition of the patient, the presence of chronic diseases and contraindications, etc. Septic, purulent, burn surgery, neurosurgery, phlebology, hematology and other branches of medicine are closely related to traumatology.
Traumatology for the common man is primarily associated with damage to the musculoskeletal system. And not by chance. Many have heard the concept of «trauma point», some may even have had the opportunity to visit there. Most often, people go there with bruises, sprains, broken limbs and dislocations that appeared as a result of falls, blows, etc. Here, traumatology is closely intertwined with the corresponding section of medicine, which deals with the prevention and treatment of diseases of the musculoskeletal system – orthopedics. It is no coincidence that a medical specialty in this area is called an orthopedic traumatologist.
History and archaeology suggest that back in the Ancient World, people tried to treat the consequences of injuries by performing operations to fuse fractures of the limbs and even skull bones. Among the finds of the past, scientists also have medical instruments that were allegedly used by doctors in ancient times. The first attempts to systematize information on the treatment of injuries were made by Hippocrates.
Among the methods of treatment in traumatology, conservative and surgical methods are distinguished depending on the nature of the injury: from the application of a fixing bandage, including plaster, and the installation of special devices and devices for drawing to complex surgical operations.
Famous doctors of different times and nationalities made a great contribution to the development of traumatology: A. Pare, E.O. Mukhin, N.I. Pirogov, A.A. Bobrov, M. Kirchner, V. Sherman et al. Among representatives of the Soviet school of traumatology, one cannot ignore the names of people like R.R. Harmful, N.N. Priorov, G.I. Turner, M.I. Sitenko and others.
The first social factors that gave impetus to the development of traumatology were, as cruel as it sounds, wars, during which injury was commonplace, and the problem of providing timely and qualified care to the wounded forced doctors to look for new methods of treatment and study new types of traumatic effects on the human body.
Other social factors that accelerated the development of traumatology included industrialization processes, accompanied by the growth of industrial enterprises, equipment, and transport, which also increased the number of traumatic factors, both in production and in everyday life.
Today in Russia, trauma centers and special rooms at clinics remain the priority authorities for providing assistance in case of injury. Inpatient care for patients is provided in special departments of hospitals. Specialist doctors are trained by the departments of traumatology and orthopedics of higher medical educational institutions, as well as the departments of military field surgery of higher military medical educational institutions.
• Article «Who will get a patient back on his feet and dance?»