The secret life of America's poison centers

摘要

In 1982, I was a postgraduate year 2 internal medicine resident at Albany Medical Center. Intrigued by the specialty of emergency medicine, I selected a rotation in the pediatric emergency department (ED). In the first hour of my first day, a red rotary-dial wall telephone rang. The nurse pointed to me and then the telephone-suddenly I was the poison center! Most emergency physicians were raised in the era of poison centers. The first one was established in Chicago in 1953. The concept caught fire. Perhaps fueled by the baby boom, the number of self-identified poison centers skyrocketed to more than 600 in the United States by 1970. Although the rapid adoption was gratifying, these were mainly small centers that focused on their hospital's catchment area. Some were mainly a tool intended to capture pediatric patients for the hospital. Despite the large number of centers, coverage of the United States was incomplete.