Hurt: The Inspiring, Untold Story of Trauma Care

by Catherine Musemeche

Trauma is a disease of epidemic proportions that preys on the young, killing more Americans up to age thirty-seven than all other afflictions combined. Every year an estimated 2.8 million people are hospitalized for injuries and more than 180,000 people die. We take for granted that no matter how or where we are injured, someone will call 911 and trained first responders will show up to insert IVs, stop the bleeding, and swiftly deliver us to a hospital staffed by doctors and nurses with the expertise necessary to save our lives. None of this happened on its own. Told through the eyes of a surgeon who has flown on rescue helicopters, resuscitated patients in trauma centers in Houston and Chicago, and operated on hundreds of trauma victims of all ages, Hurt takes us on a tour of the advancements in injury treatment from the battlefields of the Civil War to the state-of-the-art trauma centers of today.

Genres: Nonfiction, Medical

268 pages, Hardcover

Published September 6, 2016

Reviews

[Kathy Maresca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written in a captivating style, "Hurt" traces trauma care from its roots to its current triumphs and challenges. This book explains PTSD in a thorough and eloquent manner. Anyone who is interested in military history, trauma care, medicine, counseling, or rehabilitation will not only learn from it but also enjoy Dr. Musemeche's every word.

[Kristine Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The treatment of the severely injured is a world of its own." -- Dr. Kate Musemeche

What a world it is! As I read Hurt: The Inspiring, Untold Story of Trauma Care, I repeatedly found myself amazed by the plethora of medical luxuries that I take for granted every single day. I found myself further amazed by the history of passionate people who saw tragic, often fatal flaws in the system (or lack of system) and took it upon themselves to make changes. These people fought for funding and for support and for their reputations to not be ruined -- all so that victims of traumatic injuries could not just survive but thrive. There literally are scores of people whose names most of us wouldn't recognize, but they are pioneers whose work resulted in our modern emergency rooms, world-wide accepted procedures for first-responders, mobile medical care, blood banks, rehabilitation centers; the list goes on and on. (Side note: Sue Baker is my new heroine -- read about her and how what she has been doing since 1972 affects you every day of your life.)

And let's talk about trauma injuries. Author Catherine Musemeche, M.D. talks about the injuries sustained by everything from the "new" Springfield .58 caliber rifle introduced to war in 1861, to a freak accidents resulting in hemipelvectomy*, to PTSD induced by time spent in intensive care units - the irony. Musemeche tells case stories that read like page turning fiction, then she leaves readers hanging while she describes the medical side and challenges of treatment for that particular injury, and then gives the resolution to the patients' traumas. (*Side note #2 -- I learned a lot of new words for things I didn't even know existed. Look this one up if you have a strong stomach.)

What is fascinating to me and again, something I never considered before reading the book, is how treating those injured in wars -- from Civil through Afghanistan - provides the most critical learning experiences for those in the medical field. There are many examples of major advances happening as a result of medical personnel having to deal with soldiers and the unique injuries of war, that happen in inhospitable, unsanitary, and often remote places. For example, in the trench warfare of World War I, doctors were dealing with epidemics of disease and more head and neck injuries than ever before because of soldiers being shot as they peeked out of the trenches. New injuries called for new responses and procedures to be put in place as priorities shifted for what to treat first.

The sheer amount of information in this book is mind boggling; my copy is littered with sticky-note tabs. Dr. Musemeche manages to inform without overloading, and readers can be confident they are getting good information given the 419 citations provided in the back of the book. And if your sticky notes fall off, there's also a handy index if you want to go back and find out, for example, how much the world's first "portable" defibrillator weighed (155 lbs!).

I highly recommend this book to both people in the medical world (I recommended it to my dentist today!) and those of us who aren't because it truly changes the reader's perspective. We all could use a healthy dose of gratitude, and reading Hurt: The Inspiring, Untold Story of Trauma Care will make you grateful for the many comforts and conveniences we enjoy. We've come a long way, baby.

Thank you to the author and Lone Stat Book Blog Tours for providing me a print copy in exchange for my honest opinion -- the only kind I give.

[Leslie aka StoreyBook Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Educational and Entertaining - two things you may not expect to find in a non fiction book about Trauma Care. Or maybe you would. The information is presented in such a way that it kept me interested from start to finish.

While I know that medical care has come a long way, I never really thought about how traumas are handled in hospitals, or even out in the field. There were so many doctors that fought for better care and better equipment out on the road to help decrease the fatalities from freak accidents. Take ambulances for example - you probably knew that the first ambulances were hearses and that in small towns they did double duty. However, there was no room in back for anyone to help the wounded en route to the hospital. There was an organization called Freedom House that shaped what our EMS has become. The training they had to go through was intense, but they were well prepared to help anyone that needed the assistance.

Or that Sue Baker, a nurse, started looking for trends in accident victims and wrote papers on how some traumas could be avoided - like better seat belts in cars. She even learned to fly a plane to look into why there were so many plane crashes in different parts of the country. Now that is dedication to your job!

Along with the historical aspect of the book, the author shares real life trauma stories that might send chills up and down your body. From the shooting on the UT campus in the mid 60's to a young woman that was hurt in an accident involving farm equipment. Not all stories have a happy ending, but the different examples show how far trauma care in hospitals has come.

I never expected to enjoy the book as much as I did and the author did a superb job at notating her sources - 30 pages worth in the back of the book. There are a few times where the book seems to stray too far into areas not tied to trauma care (like gun bills and tighter controls), but it just lends itself to the how important trauma care is with how crazy the world has become.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a former EMT, the history of trauma care has always been an interesting topic, made even more so through this book. The author looks at how trauma care evolved mainly through discoveries and practices engaged in during wars. Making this history even more compelling are the addition of personal stories that add to the reader’s understanding. This was a fascinating look at something we all take for granted – being able to receive immediate emergency help simply by dialing 911.

[Ruthie Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hurt is so much more than the typical non-fictional account of trauma care. Divided into three parts (Transport, Treatment, and Post-Trauma), Hurt is well written and fast paced and covers a lot of historical ground and shows how that history has shaped so many aspects of the medical industry. I’ve always had a non-professional fascination with healthcare, so reading Hurt has been both entertaining and enlightening. This small book packs in so much information, without getting bogged down in too many details or too much jargon.

The author bookends many of the sections with real-life anecdotes that put the corresponding information into perspective. While several stories involve accidents and misfortunes on the domestic front, the book details many innovative technologies and procedures developed out of necessity during times of war, when so many people are torn apart and ravaged from ever-increasing methods of destruction.

Hurt takes you on a technological and procedural journey that involves hearses commissioned as make-shift ambulances, re-evaluating the steps in trauma care, innovative ways to preserve donated blood for later use, the long-term (and often deadly) effects of shock (I had no idea!), remote trauma care, brain and spinal cord injuries that continue to baffle and devastate, the long-reaching and long-lasting effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, and recognizing and understanding the importance of rehabilitation.

The information in Hurt hammers home how much we often take what we have today for granted: ambulances and trained medical personnel, 911 service, modern and amazing technology that saves and keeps so many alive, safety equipment we use without even thinking about it, and the continued development of prostheses that is making the bionic woman and six million dollar man a reality.

As this book outlines, many medical technologies and procedures that we take for granted did not happen overnight or without push back or even scoffing. Hurt highlights several committed men and women who saw a need and worked (and continue to work) relentlessly to effect change in the world of trauma care that affects all of us.

***
“It takes a lot of force to break a brain, but we Americans have become experts at it.” ~ chapter 11

[Ann Welton · Rating 5 out of 5]

First, thank you to LibraryThing and U.P.N.E. Publishers for this book to enjoy and review. As a retired Nurse Practitioner, I admire all books medical, and this one was ever-so special to me. Dr. Musemeche did a superb job of covering the history of trauma care beginning back to the Civil War. And what a very complete job she did, reviewing every aspect of trauma, how it occurs so often in very remote areas, what exactly is an “early-response” team, and how it developed over the years. “As long as we are out moving in the world, we will get hurt” as Dr. Musemeche explained. You will enjoy this very factual book covering all aspects of human trauma, where we have been and where we might be headed. Thank you Dr. Musemeche for such a great contribution to the history of trauma care.

[Les Gehman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hurt is an outstanding history of trauma care in the US interspersed with individual stories relating how different aspects of trauma care affected individual people. It is very well written and Dr. Musemeche does an exemplary job of explaining technical aspects of trauma care in a way that everyone can understand. Highly recommended!

(Note: I received this book from the publisher via a LibraryThing Early Reviewer.)

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A history of Trauma care. The book gives fascinating stories of real-life trauma cases and the impact they often had in shaping emergency care in the US and around the world.
The book is decided into three parts representing the three segments of trauma care; Transport, Treatment, and Post-Treatment care. Transport includes the development of EMS, the evolution of the ambulance, and the use of helicopters in life-saving situations. Treatment covers such topics as identifying shock, managing blood loss, and the effects of the availability of guns & prevalence of mass shootings in the US. The Post-Treatment section is all about recovering from the massive injuries which landed a patient in trauma care in the first place including facial reconstruction, prosthetics, and the recognition & treatment of PTSD.
The first thing that struck me was how recent many of the developments in trauma care that I, living in a mid-sized city, take for granted came to be. From professional ambulance care (not wide-spread until the 1970's) to 24 hour emergency medical services (the 1980's and ongoing in some areas). I had known that some treatments were recent, but having it laid-out in this way really emphasizes how fortunate people with access to modern medical care are.
The other surprising element was the advances themselves. Being an avid reader of science I had some clue as advances in life-saving techniques such as artificial blood and in older reconstructive techniques. I did not realize just how much new and more specialized technology existed in such fields as prosthetics (grafting a new limb into the existing bone?!?) and cryotransport for the critically injured.
As a whole, the book was a great read with lots of information and stories. There were a couple of things that bothered me stylistically. One was that the stories used to illustrate (so to speak) the chapters were completely in-line paragraph-wise with the informational sections. This made for a somewhat uneven narrative and I would have liked to see them set apart using either italics or indented paragraphs. The second was the lack of a conclusion. The introduction was great, but I feel that the two paragraphs on the last page of the chapter on prosthetics did not do enough to really emphasize the authors points and bring the closure that a book of this style calls for.
Overall, if you have an interest in the history of medicine or if you are thinking of going into trauma care this book will prove (as the subtitle suggests) both inspiring and informative. I know I enjoyed it.

Full Disclosure: I received this book as part of a Goodreads giveaway. A review was, as always, appreciated but not expected.

[Christena · Rating 5 out of 5]

How many of us have ever really paid attention to an ambulance ride? Or even to the trauma care personnel in an ER?

In all honesty – none of us who have had the unfortunate opportunity to be picked up by an ambulance or been in a trauma room have ever paid attention. I never would’ve given it a second thought until after reading “Hurt.” I’ve personally seen the inside of a trauma care unit and I took for granted that those trained individuals had always been trained for trauma for many decades. Wow – was I wrong.

This brilliantly written book was not what I was expecting and became a page-turner. Immediately, I was immersed in the trauma care history with personal stories interwoven throughout the book. The author, Catherine Musemeche gives enough information about the noteworthy history of trauma care and does not overwhelm a reader to where they lose interest. Sometimes the telling of history can get bogged down with too many words.

“Hurt” provides the perfect history to make you more knowledgeable about trauma care and if you want more in-depth reading then the source notes at the end of the book are an excellent place to start.

You learn that the basic emergency care of an ambulance waiting nearby has only evolved within the last few decades. Funeral homes were relied upon in those early years of taking accident victims to hospitals.

This small book packs other fantastic information of how trauma care advanced from the Civil War to helicopters rescuing soldiers during wartime, to how trauma centers formed in the U.S., to how wilderness care evolved.

“Hurt” will forever make me appreciate the trauma and ER personnel more when I see them on the side of the road or if I ever personally encounter them again (I hope I don’t). The Wilderness Chapter was my favorite because of all my recent outdoor adventures. Now duct tape will always be in my backpack.

This is a book that will pique your interest from its first chapter to its last. It’s an enlightening book everyone should read to understand how these valuable life-saving techniques evolved because none of us know when or if we’ll ever be in need of trauma care personnel to save our lives or the lives of loved ones.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Going to the ER after an accident, or other event is something we all take for granted. Expert care and transportation to a Level 1 trauma center is possible for most of us if it is a terrible, terrible wound. Yet, as early as the 1950’s and 1960’s that level of care was not available to many in this country. The author takes us on a meticulous journey from the Civil War onwards, the World Wars, to war in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, noting the progression of trauma care and the facilities that support that care: blood banks, transportation (ambulances and helicopters) recognition of PTSD, development of prosthetics and more. We meet numerous nurses and doctors who have furthered patient care and survival in our ERs..

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was both a horrifying and fascinating read. The author describes the history of various forms of medical care, including trauma care and plastic surgery. Given the study released just this week showing that rural patients are 50% more likely to die from trauma than urban ones, this book is all the more relevant for its timeliness. Highly recommended.

[Susan Draper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting history of the evolution and huge advancements in trauma care. The individual stories are heart warming. Great book!

[Paula Huffman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative. I read information pertaining to myself, family members, and friends. The book answered questions I didn't even know I had.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book from Goodreads Giveaway

Hurt tells the story of trauma care in three parts: transport, treatment, and post-trauma. Musemeche uses the stories of individuals who experienced trauma to hook the reader at the beginning of each chapter and illustrate the impact of different aspects of trauma. I found Hurt to be a well-woven mix of these individual stories and the bigger picture of how trauma has evolved.