Trauma assessment can feel overwhelming when you're new to it. The primary and secondary surveys exist to bring order to the chaos.
The Primary Survey: the important steps
The primary survey follows c-ABCDE: Catastrophic haemorrhage, Airway, Breathing, Circulation, Disability, Exposure/Environment. It's an order of priority, remember to reassess after every intervention.
The Secondary Survey: find what you missed
Once life-threatening problems are controlled, the secondary survey is a structured head-to-toe examination to catch injuries that you haven’t seen in the primary trauma survey.
Why the order matters
A trauma patient can deteriorate from a missed airway obstruction rapidly, but a simple, uncomplicated injury has less likelihood of this.
Want the full structured breakdown? Our Trauma Assessment Digital Booklet covers this in detail.