Tactical Medicine News Blog

[Click for larger view] Chief complaint: Left eye pain, redness, and foreign body sensation History of Present Illness: 39 year old man presents after metal grinding without protective eyewear three days prior. He had felt something strike his left eye. He developed “burning” pain, tearing, and redness. Pain worsens with extraocular movements. He notes that vision in his right eye has always been worse than the left. Denies any other visual complaints.

Podcasts are all the rage these days, and it is not surprising that some residents spend more time with podcasts than any other educational resource.​1–3​ But why? And how do podcasts fit with other forms of learning, like lectures, textbooks, and clinical teaching? In our recent article published in Academic Medicine, we explored these questions. Using qualitative interviews and analysis, we identified 3 overarching themes that shed light on residents’ podcast listening behaviors and the tensions with which listeners wrestled.​4​

Background Information: Critical care and emergency medicine are frequently intertwined as the resuscitation of critically ill patients occurs in both environments. While the majority of these patients come through the emergency department (ED), the resuscitation of critically ill patients is not defined by a geographic location, but rather a set of principles designed to deliver appropriate care in a timely fashion.1,2 Increased numbers of critically ill patients in combination with decreased availability of intensive care unit (ICU) beds and a shortage of intensivists has led to a shift in critical care being delivered in the ED.3 Furthermore the lack of ICU beds, among many other factors, have contributed to a prolonged length of stay (LOS) of already admitted patients known as “ED Boarding”. Another factor to consider, is that providing prolonged critical care in a traditional ED setting is challenging as it requires more staff and is often associated with increased mortality. Multiple studies have demonstrated an association of worsened outcomes when patient’s ED LOS is greater than 6 hours and, in the United States, 33% of all ICU admissions from the ED have an ED LOS greater than 6 hours.1,4 A proposed solution has been the development of ICUs housed within the ED known as ED-ICUs. While only a handful exist, this new method of care delivery aims to reduce the time it takes for patients to receive critical care and offset the strain on current ICUs (Table 1)4. The authors of this study sought to determine the association of ED-ICUs on 30-day mortality and inpatient ICU admission.

While community acquired pneumonia (CAP) is 'bread and butter' emergency medicine, and the diagnosis is often a 'slam dunk', it turns out that up one third of the time, we are wrong about the diagnosis; that x-rays are not perfect; that blood work is seldom helpful; that not all antibiotics are created equal and that deciding who can go home and who needs to go to the ICU isn’t always so clear cut. With this in mind we are taking a deep dive into CAP, from diagnosis to disposition so that we can better achieve our EM goals of stabilizing sick patients, getting the right diagnosis, initiating the best treatment with the information at hand, prognosticating/appropriately deciding on disposition of patients, and being healthcare and antimicrobial stewards... The post Ep 130 Community Acquired Pneumonia: Emergency Management appeared first on Emergency Medicine Cases.

While community acquired pneumonia (CAP) is 'bread and butter' emergency medicine, and the diagnosis is often a 'slam dunk', it turns out that up one third of the time, we are wrong about the diagnosis; that x-rays are not perfect; that blood work is seldom helpful; that not all antibiotics are created equal and that deciding who can go home and who needs to go to the ICU isn’t always so clear cut. With this in mind we are taking a deep dive into CAP, from diagnosis to disposition so that we can better achieve our EM goals of stabilizing sick patients, getting the right diagnosis, initiating the best treatment with the information at hand, prognosticating/appropriately deciding on disposition of patients, and being healthcare and antimicrobial stewards... The post Ep 130 Community Acquired Pneumonia: Emergency Management appeared first on Emergency Medicine Cases.