Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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The White House "Stop the Bleed" campaign has renewed interest in public-access bleeding kits and the use of tourniquets by the lay public. The objective of this study was to determine which type of tourniquet could be applied most effectively by the lay public using only manufacturer instructions included with each tourniquet. ⋯ Our study suggests that laypersons could benefit from prior training to effectively apply tourniquets in emergency situations. Of the tourniquets studied, the RMT was the most effectively and most rapidly applied.
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Labor and sex trafficking have long impacted the patients who seek care in emergency departments (ED) across the United States. Increasing social and legislative pressures have led to multiple calls for screening for trafficking in the clinical care setting, but adoption of unvalidated screening tools for trafficking recognition is unwise for individual patient care and population-level data. Development of a valid screening tool for a social malady that is largely "invisible" to most clinicians requires significant investments. Valid screening tool development is largely a poorly understood process in the antitrafficking field and among clinicians who would use the tools. ⋯ Study methodology transparency encourages investigative rigor and integrity and will allow other sites to reproduce and externally validate this study's findings.