USNR Triage is the process of sorting patients and classifying them in terms of relative urgency. It ensures that those who need treatment sooner receive it and that limited resources are not wasted on those who can be delayed with little harm or, more depressingly, who are certain to die.
Triage requires difficult decisions and poses ethical and moral dilemmas for the uninitiated.
Paradoxically, few in civilian life have practiced triage despite life-long careers in trauma care. After the conflict is over, it will not likely be used again. 2 Triage is essential because physicians accustomed to treating a maximum of only a few casualties at a time, even in a Level I Trauma Center, may face as many as 50 casualties but have limited personnel, supplies, time, and equipment. The environment may be hostile, due to climatic conditions or actual enemy fire. When many battle casualties present simultaneously, the logical rules of sorting and assigning patients to categories of care should be practiced as identically as possible at all levels dealing with a given casualty.