Local anesthesia allows the physician to manage pain related to trauma and procedures such as wound exploration and repair, foreign body removal, fracture and dislocation reduction, incision and drainage, lumbar puncture, chest thoracostomy, and arthrocentesis. Local anesthetic techniques to reduce pain include local infiltration, field block, and nerve blocks. This chapter will describe general principles of local anesthesia and the specific techniques of local infiltration and field blocks.

 
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Authors

Colin Devonshire , MD

Resident Physician in Emergency Medicine
Beth-Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts

 

John E. Sullivan, MD

Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Staff Physician, Department of Emergency Medicine
Mount Auburn Hospital, Cambridge, Massachusetts

  
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Gary Setnik, MD

Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Chair, Department of Emergency Medicine
Mount Auburn Hospital, Cambridge, Massachusetts

 
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Todd W. Thomsen, MD
Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Staff Physician, Department of Emergency Medicine
Mount Auburn Hospital, Cambridge, Massachusetts
   

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