International Trauma Life Support Course Manual for Emergency Care Providers

The 1st edition of the ITLS Course Manual for Emergency Care Providers - the core text for International Trauma Life Support courses worldwide.

Trauma care in the field is decided in minutes, by whoever arrives first. This manual teaches a rapid, repeatable approach to the critically injured patient: assess fast, intervene only where it saves life, and transport without delay.

The text is built around the ITLS Primary Survey and its CABC sequence - control life-threatening bleeding, then airway, breathing and circulation. Interventions and skills sit inside each chapter alongside the injuries they treat, so assessment and treatment are learned together rather than in separate places.

What is inside

• Three sections - core content, body system injury, and special considerations and populations.
• A redesigned Patient Assessment Algorithm, presented as a clear flow chart, plus a full page of algorithms that can be downloaded and folded into a pocket reference.
• A QR code closing every chapter, linking to supporting videos, references and tools.
• Current practice throughout - national field triage criteria for trauma centre destination decisions, reduced crystalloid administration alongside field blood transfusion where available, SALT triage for multiple casualty incidents, prevention of hypotension and hypoxia in traumatic brain injury, and burn severity estimation with burn centre referral criteria.

Target Audience:

Paramedics, AEMTs, EMTs and first responders; nurses, physician assistants and physicians; and military and industrial medical personnel. Content supports both Basic and Advanced levels.

International Trauma Life Support is a global non-profit organization founded in 1982. It delivers trauma education through Chapters and Training Centres in more than 50 countries, and more than 900,000 personnel have been trained since its founding.

This manual is the course text. ITLS certification is awarded on successful completion of a course delivered by an ITLS Chapter or Training Centre, including hands-on skill stations and a patient assessment examination.