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William G. Baxt, MD
University of California, San Diego, Medical Center

JAMA. 1987;258(17):2378-2379.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

In Reply.—

Dr Mackenzie et al state that there were four instances in which the flight nurse/flight physician team made an error "in needle thoracostomy or chest tube placement" and go on to state that "field MDs also do not necessarily make the right judgments in management of blunt trauma." In fact, as stated on page 3248, paragraphs 2 and 3 of our article, of the 316 patients treated by the flight nurse/flight physician team, there was only one instance in which an indicated thoracostomy tube was not placed, not four instances as noted by Dr Mackenzie et al. In fact, the total error rate for the flight nurse/ flight paramedic team was 11% (29 errors in 258 patients), while the analogous rate for the flight nurse/flight physician team was 0.6% (two errors in 316 patients). In view of these findings, we find it difficult to agree with the conclusion . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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