Killspeak

In April, I wrote an article on my father‘s research: the potential of a blood test, called TEG, of warning doctors of life-threatening blood problems. I wrote this for a course on science journalism I took this past semester. The prof, Alf, passed it on to Anne and Anna who published it in Inkling Magazine.

Traffic is moving well. I’m in a car with Dr. Sandro Rizoli, somewhere between Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario. There are coolers full of blood in the back seats and trunk. “If someone rear-ends us right now,” Dr. Rizoli says, “they’re going to feel really bad: there’ll be blood everywhere.”

He jokes, but he takes car accidents very seriously in his work as a surgeon. Car accidents are one of the leading causes of life-threatening injuries, what doctors call trauma. Of all the Canadians admitted for trauma each year, 6500 die. It is the leading cause of death for people under the age of 45 in Canada and worldwide.

“Trauma patients die from two things: head injuries or bleeding,” says Dr. Rizoli. Head injuries and brain damage are tough, but “patients that don’t stop bleeding are worse. No matter how well we stitch them up, if they keep bleeding, they won’t get better.”

Dr. Rizoli is the director of trauma research at the Sunnybrook Institute and an assistant professor at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on bleeding and trauma. He is also my dad, which is why I am in the car with him. He needs someone to carry the coolers.

Read the whole story at Inkling. Thanks to Alf, Anne, and, of course, my pops for helping me out with it.