Affiliation:
1. Cardiothoracic Surgical Unit Guy's Hospital London
Abstract
SUMMARYThe management of trauma to any organ system follows a clearly defined pattern of five steps. For convenience these are known as the 5 Rs and are resuscitation, review, repair, recovery and finally rehabilitation. It is unusual for a single system to be injured in isolation and therefore in the management of trauma it is important to consider the patient as a whole and to direct attention to the vital systems first before moving on to consider non‐life threatening injuries. The management of cardiothoracic trauma is no exception to this dictum.