Body Trauma A Writer’s Guide to Wounds and Injuries by David W. Page, M.D.
Trade Paperback	6 x 9	Writing Reference
Release date: October 2006	254 pages	ISBN: 978-1-933016-41-2
	$17.95

From murder/mystery to medical fiction - from trauma, mass casualties, or blunt trauma, surgeon and trauma expert Dr. David W. Page is a writer’s best friend.

Whether your fictional character is a detective investigating a crime or a doctor racing down the hallways toward an emergency, it’s a given that someone is hurt. Credible storytelling is the key to plausibility, and Dr. Page offers the perfect prescription.

Body Trauma explains what happens to body organs and bones maimed by accident or intent and the small window of opportunity for emergency treatment. You'll learn about what goes on in a hospital operating room and the personnel who initiate treatment. Use these facts and bring a new realism to your stories and novels.

Dr. David W. Page’s talents go beyond the O.R. as he takes you up close and personal to reveal:

• The four steps in trauma care
• Details of skull and brain injuries
• What the Glasgow Coma Scale is, and why it's important
• Specifics of penetrating and blunt neck injuries
• The "dirty dozen" dreadful-but survivable-chest injuries
• What blunt trauma, blades and bullets do to abdominal organs
• Effects of injuries to arms and legs, hands and feet
• The facts about bites and stings
• What happens in impalement injuries
• The truths of abuse of elders, women and children.
• How organ donation works

This fine writing tool has been updated to include:

• New trauma surgery techniques
• Persistent vegetative state
• Transplant ethics
• Torture andpower
• Terrorism and mass casualties
• Shock states

Here you'll find graphic explorations of serious bodily damage. You'll be able to work backward, deciding how severe a character's wounds should be and then writing the action that causes the pain. You'll put your characters in harm's way and mistreat them-believability-to within an inch of their fictional lives.

Reviews and Accolades

Silver Medal Winner
2007 Independent Publisher Book Awards -- Reference Category

"Dr. David Page has written an authoritative guide to all the ills that might befall your body after an accident and delivers both diagnosis and plot ideas with a wry bookside manner that will keep you reading even if you've never been to the emergency room."
- James Patrick Kelly, Hugo award-winning author of BURN.

" A fascinating and most helpful reference for any writer of fiction or non-fiction"
- Suzanne Strempek Shea, author of Shelf Life

" A valuable resource for writers. I will certainly consult it the next time a physical mishap befalls one of my characters."
- David Anthony Durham, author of Pride of Carthage

"Body Trauma unquestionably provides useful information on subjects that we-and our characters- simply may not be able to avoid."
-The Writer Magazine

"This book contains valuable information and will show you how to make it - and the clean-up - realistic."
-Curled Up With A Good Book

"If Melville had been fortunate to have had this helpful guide by his side, Ahab's missing leg might have been referred to as a traumatic amputation of the fibula and tibia."
- Michael White, author of The Blind Side of The Heart, A Brother's Blood, A Dream of Wolves, The Garden of Martyrs

About the Author

DAVID W. PAGE, M.D. is Professor of Surgery, Tufts University School of Medicine and Director of Student Programs in Surgery, Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, MA. He is a general surgeon with experience in trauma care, critical care medicine and has won numerous teaching awards from Tufts medical students and Baystate surgical residents, including Outstanding Teaching in the Clinical Sciences Award for 2004. Dr. Page has an MFA degree from the University of Southern Maine and co-wrote Code Blue -- a writer's guide to hospitals, including the ER, OR, and ICU with Keit Wilson, MD.