Advanced Trauma Life Support Course

The Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) Program, designed by the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Committee on Trauma (COT), aims to improve the care of trauma patients. The 2-day course includes didactic lectures, practical skill stations and real-time trauma simulation sessions. Doctors will be taught a systematic, concise method of establishing assessment and management priorities in the care of the trauma patients.

The ATLS Program aims to provide the participants with a safe, reliable method to assess the patient's condition rapidly and accurately, resuscitate and stabilize them according to priority, determine if there's a need to transfer the patient to another facility, arrange for inter-hospital transfer and ensure that optimal care is provided.

There are 3 course centres in Singapore that conduct the ATLS Program, namely Singapore Armed Forces, Singapore General Hospital and Tan Tock Seng Hospital.

Course Objectives

• Upon completion of the course, the participant will be able to:
• Demonstrate concepts and principles of primary and secondary patient assessment.
• Establish management priorities in a trauma situation.
• Initiate primary and secondary management necessary within the "golden hour" for the emergency care of acute life-threatening emergencies.
• Demonstrate, in a given simulated clinical and surgical skill practicum, the following skills used in the initial assessment and management of patients with multiple injuries:
• Primary and secondary assessment of a patient with simulated, multiple injuries
• Established a patent airway and initiating one- and two-person ventilation
• Orotracheal and nasotracheal intubation on adult and infant manikins
• Pulse oximetry and carbon dioxide monitoring
• Cricothyroidotomy
• Assessment and management of the patient in shock, including initiation of percutaneous venous access and recognition of life-threatening hemorrhage
• Venous cutdown (optional) 
• Pleural decompression via needle thoracentesis and chest tube insertion
• Pericardiocentesis
• X-ray identification of thoracic injuries
• Peritoneal lavage, ultrasound, and CT evaluation of the abdomen
• Head and neck trauma assessment and management with GCS scoring
• Identification of intracranial lesion by CT scan
• X-ray identification of spine injuries
• Neurotrauma evaluation
• Musculoskeletal trauma assessment and management