What is the relationship between first aid and emergency health

To put it simply, first aid is the front-end immediate response link in the emergency health system, while emergency health is the underlying support covering the entire chain of risk prediction, on-site treatment, and subsequent recovery. The two are nested relationships between points and areas, immediate response, and long-term prevention and control, and cannot be separated at all.

I have been doing first aid popularization at the grassroots level for almost 7 years, and I didn’t understand the relationship between the two so clearly at the beginning. I encountered two particularly impressive incidents in the past few years, and I only figured out some clues. When I was doing a free clinic in my old community in the dog days of last year, a 72-year-old man suddenly fell down while walking. There happened to be an aunt next to him who had just participated in our science class last week. She immediately felt the carotid artery and judged that it was a myocardial infarction. He immediately performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation. When calling 120, he still called 120 accurately. After learning about the uncle’s usual history of hypertension, his condition when he first became ill, and even telling the dispatcher which door in the community the ambulance can enter in advance, the uncle finally arrived at the hospital for thrombolysis on average 8 minutes faster than cases of the same level, and there were almost no sequelae after he was rescued. You say this is the result of first aid, right? That's right, but the aunt's understanding of how to judge the signs of myocardial infarction and how to clear the path for the ambulance in advance are actually part of emergency health science, and cannot be learned by just practicing the compression strength of cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

There are also different opinions in the industry. Many colleagues feel that at this stage, we should focus on popularizing first aid skills first. The golden 4-minute window period is better than anything else. Being able to perform CPR and use AED is better than anything else. Talking too much about pre-prevention and follow-up precautions will distract everyone. This view is certainly reasonable. I also felt the same way a few years ago, until I encountered another incident. The year before last, an aunt in her 50s came to class. She had just learned the Heimlich maneuver. When she came home, her 3-year-old grandson got stuck in his throat after eating jelly. She did use the technique she had just learned to remove the jelly. At that time, she saw that the child was fine and didn't take it seriously. As a result, the child started to cough up blood and have a fever the next day. When he went to the hospital for a checkup, he found that the jelly had scratched the airway mucosa. After a night of delay, he had become infected and suffered a lot. It was then that I realized that if you only teach first aid movements without the full chain of cognitive supplements for emergency health, the effect will be compromised in many cases.

Now we have adjusted our thinking in training, and we will not just teach movements in a dry manner. When talking about first aid for myocardial infarction, we will talk about how to control blood lipids in daily life and how to identify risks in advance through the signs of chest pain and tightness. When talking about Heimlich, we will remind young children not to eat whole jelly and nuts. If you have persistent coughing or labored breathing after the foreign body is expelled, you must go to the doctor immediately. These contents that seem to have nothing to do with "first aid" are actually part of emergency health and can amplify the effect of first aid several times.

To use an inappropriate analogy, these two are like playing football. The first aid is the forward's final kick. Whether or not he can score a goal directly determines the result. But without the midfielder and backfield who usually check risks and cooperate with the ball on the field, the forward can't even get a chance to shoot. Nowadays, people often ask me whether learning emergency health is the same as learning first aid. I usually smile and say that first aid is the sharp knife you can pull out at critical moments, while emergency health is the whole set of skills you need to sharpen the blade, sheath the knife, and know when to draw the knife. Without any one of them, it will not work.