CallaFirestormBW
Posts: 3651
Joined: 6/29/2008 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: apiercedkitty Actually - i was just going to edit my previous point because it was way bitchier than it should have been - my apologies. my point was that it would appear that you assumed the people were googling, when they might, in fact have been using "their knowledge." i don't recall anyone using the term "full-thickness"... only saying it was 3rd degree. Using "degrees" of burns is different than actually describing them. Again, out of the text, "The severity of a burn is determined by the extent of the body surface area involved and the depth of the burn. The degree of tissue damage is related to what agent caused the burn and to the temperature and duration of exposure to the heat source." Most lay people would have no idea the difference between full-thickness and deep full-thickness. Therefore, they go by degrees - and blisters are usually considered 3rd degree (in a layman's world). Again, my apologies for the tone of the previous post. *edited to add: rating with degrees tends to be archaeic at best... using terms to describe the amount of tissue involved, i.e. superficial, full-thickness, etc. is how the American Burn Association describes burns. After all, it's the deepness and amount of surface area that are important when treating burns.* Something must have changed since my own medical training (paramedic/midwife)... and even since I took my last first-aid refresher, come to think of it (that was just last year). We were taught just a year ago that burns with redness but no blisters and only epidermal involvement were1st degree, burns with blisters and involvement into the dermis were 2nd degree, burns with or without blistering, with draining serum or forming eschar, with charring of epidermal/dermal tissue, affecting epidermis, dermis, subcutaneous/hypodermis, fascia, muscle, nerve tissue were 3rd degree, and that burns through all layers of skin, fascia, muscle, nerve, with damage to underlying structure and/or organs were 4th degree. I remember being taught that the "layman's term" for blistering burns was 2nd degree, not 3rd, and that while 3rd degree burns might have some blistering on their outer edges, 3rd degree burns were much more likely to "weep" or be wet from draining serum than they were to be blistered. In my work, I mostly deal with burns from radiation treatments, but they are typically more like concentrated sunburns. Kitty, are you a doc? I noticed you asked earlier whether another poster was a doc, so I'm curious about whether this might be taught differently in medical school than it is to allied health professionals (nurses, paramedics, PA's, and/or APNs). If you're not, just pass the question by -- it's just more of my curiosity showing. Calla Firestorm
< Message edited by CallaFirestormBW -- 7/29/2008 10:34:22 AM >
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*** Said to me recently: "Look, I know you're the "voice of reason"... but dammit, I LIKE being unreasonable!!!!" "Your mind is more interested in the challenge of becoming than the challenge of doing." Jon Benson, Bodybuilder/Trainer
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