Pediatric trauma: an approach to the injured child.

The approach to the injured child requires great care and clinical acumen to establish the diagnosis and institute appropriate treatment. Loss of life from occult internal hemorrhage or neurologic sequelae from a missed unstable cervical spine injury may be devastating. Yet, physicians in the ED must also know which children need only a careful physical examination, and when laboratory testing or admission is unnecessary. We have described a schema for providing appropriate care to children with trauma in such a way that specific issues about management can be reasonably approached by the emergency physician.