LSU Health Foundation New Orleans

LSUHSC Department of Surgery ASSET course

Advanced Hemostasis in Trauma

Course Directors:

Patrick Greiffenstein, MD: Trauma Critical Care Surgeon, LSU

Alison Smith, MD: Associate Professor of Clinical Surgery, LSU
Trauma Medical Director, McSwain Level 1 Trauma Center
Email address: asmi60@lsuhsc.edu

Introduction and Overview

Management of the severely injured patient is challenging in the best of circumstances. However, many of the skills and techniques that surgeons are called upon to use in certain circumstances are difficult to hone due to the sporadic and unpredictable nature of some of the most severe injuries. Injuries to the peripheral blood vessels and severe chest wall injuries require experience in complex anatomic exposures that many surgeons do not get during their training or are too infrequently performed to remain adept.

The ASSET course stands for Advanced Surgical Skills for Exposure in Trauma and is an American College of Surgeons (ACS) sponsored course designed to teach rapid access to peripheral vasculature for the purpose of emergent hemostasis in the setting of life-threatening hemorrhage. Traumatic injury to peripheral blood vessels is both unpredictable and highly time sensitive. As such, careful instruction of dissection techniques during residency training is challenging even in the busiest trauma centers. Using a combination of audiovisual presentations, live demonstrations and hands-on practicum on fresh cadavers, ASSET provides comprehensive experience in management of some of the most challenging surgical cases.

Course Objectives

By the end of the ASSET course, providers will be comfortable with dissection of the carotid, axillary, subclavian, femoral, iliac, and peripheral limb neurovascular structures and be able to perform these in the acutely injured patient.

Physicians may earn up to 8 CME hours. Participants should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the course.