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Emergency · A-E assessment

Burns from a campfire - Regional Emergency Department

HardYear 5 · Curtin style · 15 min + 2 min reading · 4 tasks

Ready

2 min reading, 15 min station, warning at 2 min

Focus the timer and press Space to start or pause.

Station - Instructions for candidate

You are an intern working in the Emergency Department of a regional hospital in the South West of Western Australia. It is 9 pm on a Saturday. An anaesthetist is on call and can be in the department within 15 minutes; the nearest burns unit is in Perth, three hours by road.

Rosa/Marco Bellini, 30, arrived moments ago after a fire injury tonight. Triage has taken the patient straight through, put oxygen on and recorded observations. A registered nurse is with you.

Triage note (9 pm)30 y, 80 kg. Jacket caught fire at a campfire approx 8.20 pm when fuel was thrown on the flames; rolled on the ground, jacket pulled off by friends. Burns to front of chest and tummy and both arms; not cooled at the scene. Voice hoarse. Drove in with friends (40 min). Three beers this evening. No known medical history, no medicines, NKDA. 15 L oxygen applied at triage. Category 1.
Observations at triageHR 118 /min, BP 128/82 mmHg, RR 24 /min, SpO2 96% on 15 L via non-rebreather mask, T 35.8 degrees C, GCS 15, glucose 6.2 mmol/L, pain 9/10

Your tasks are to:

  1. Perform an A-E assessment, verbalising each step to the examiner, and treat problems as you find them.
  2. Request the investigations you need. The examiner will provide results where appropriate.
  3. State your assessment of the injury - its extent, depth and complications - and the differential considerations to the examiner.
  4. Outline your management plan to the examiner, including fluids with volumes and rates, drugs with doses, who you will call and how the patient will be transferred.
  • You do NOT need to take a full history, and you do NOT need to summarise your findings to the examiner.
  • A registered nurse is at the bedside and will carry out your instructions; describe procedures rather than performing them. The patient is represented by a simulated patient with moulage; do not touch the burns.
  • State drug, dose and route for anything you give, and the volume and rate of any fluid.

This is a 15-minute station, with 2 minutes of reading time.

Ask the examiner

Say what you want out loud, then open it below. Each result stays hidden until you reveal it.

Investigations

Ask for a category the way you would in the station: “Can I have the obs and a set of bloods?”

Examination

Say what you would examine and how; the examiner reports what you would find.

After treatment

Once you have acted, ask how the patient has responded.

Generated by AI for practice; check doses and pathways against eTG / AMH before relying on them.