Civil engineers, however, are aware of so much more that earthworks cover mainly because they are involved in so much of what goes on in & around the world. If you are considering a career in the public sector, one of the first hurdles you may encounter is the civil service test exam. This ranking process allows hospitals to prioritize patients based on severity of illness or injury, with the intent of treating the sickest first. Unless you’ve been blessed with supernaturally healthy genes (Captain America, I’m looking at you), you’ve probably experienced the triage process at least a couple of times. By the same token, though, triage can inadvertently upset less critical patients. With shooting underway in Yorkshire, the film will see the Home Guard welcoming journalist Rose Winters (Catherine Zeta-Jones) arriving to write about the area at the same time that MI5 brings word that there’s a spy on the loose.

The area is a haunted by drowned sailors who are looking for others to join their colony. The biggest area of confusion, and site of fender-benders, appears to be intersections. If the patient appears really ill, struggles to breathe or is unresponsive he or she will be seen more quickly by a doctor than those who are uncomfortable, but otherwise all right. Batchelor explains. “Parents get upset about that.” Sometimes, patients in an overcrowded setting who are classified as “less urgent” wind up with lengthy wait times, causing them to become disenchanted and even leave without being seen. Dr. Batchelor. “Look at the patient, assess them briefly and determine if something needs to be done up front, or can wait a bit.” This rapid-fire process is usually accompanied by the use of colored tags and numbers written on the patient to make them easier to spot and assist accordingly. That’s not to say that people with less urgent issues are absolutely doomed to wait hours upon hours for care.

The concept of triage is definitely a worthwhile one – help the people who need it the most, while also managing the flow of patients in and out of the emergency department or other triage situation. Tactical Combat Casualty Care methodology uses two major indicators (pulse and mental status determined by a score on the Glasgow Coma Scale) to assign a field triage score (FTS) to help physicians decide which soldiers to treat, and when. The method for this differs between hospitals, but is often a color or number-based system; Dr. Batchelor’s team at Children’s uses both (see sidebar). Once the triage assessment is made and the code is assigned, the emergency department uses the information to send patients back to the doctors for diagnosis, treatment and possible code change. You’ve probably watched a medical TV drama, and heard a nurse shout, “We have a code blue!” That means they have a patient who needs immediate attention. After all of these details are gathered, which generally takes only a few minutes, the nurse will assign a score or code to the patient. Those of us who ail, hurt and heal require medical evaluation from time to time, and a quick once-over by the triage nurse is typically part of the experience.

Triage is also the time for the nurse to obtain necessary patient information, such as the general complaint, medical history, allergies and current medications. For instance, let’s say the doctor examines the patient. Several major body functions and other factors are evaluated quickly to assess and classify each patient according to severity. Upon arrival in the emergency room (ER) or other urgent care setting, patients are directed to the triage nurse, who greets them and does a quick visual assessment, which is a huge part of the process. The least urgent category is green/five, which features patients who are dealing with an issue that doesn’t require ER attention. While its roots are found in tourism, the points it raises are worth examining. As you can see, there are several ways to triage patients. As you already know, triage was originally developed for use on battlefields. This military-inspired methodology also is used in other emergency triage situations, particularly disasters or other mass casualty events. So if you show up in the emergency room with a broken toe or other non-life-threatening problem, you can pretty much be guaranteed to get bumped down the list by incoming patients with more pressing concerns. Scott Batchelor, M.D., M.P.H, a pediatric emergency medicine physician at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite.