Tactical Medicine News Blog

You have just secured the endotracheal tube following an uneventful intubation of a moderately ill  patient in your emergency department. They had a normal pre-intubation blood pressure.  As you are calling the admit in to the ICU the patient’s nurse tells you that the BP is now in the 70’s. NOW WHAT? Blindly give a half gallon of saline and stay in your seat. Get up, walk to the patient’s room, and consider the possible causes of post intubation hypotension.

Welcome to the Gastroenterology AIR-Pro Module. Below we have listed our selection of the 10 highest quality blog posts related to 4 advanced level questions on toxicology topics posed, curated, and approved for residency training by the AIR-Pro Series Board. The blogs relate to the following questions: Cirrhosis and variceal bleeding Food impaction Management of diverticulitis Airway management in the gastrointestinal bleed In this module, we have 8 AIR-Pro’s and 2 Honorable Mentions. To strive for comprehensiveness, we selected from a broad spectrum of blogs identified through FOAMSearch.net and FOAMSearcher.

Background: Upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage (UGIH) is a commonly seen complaint in the ED.  Currently, endoscopy is the standard therapy shown to not only help with diagnosis, but also risk stratify patients and potentially offer effective hemostatic treatment of acute nonvariceal UGIH.  What is frequently an area of debate, is the optimal timing of endoscopy. Even more frustrating is the different definitions of early endoscopy ranging anywhere from 1hr up to 24hrs after initial presentation. Now on one hand, earlier timing of endoscopy could be associated with suboptimal resuscitation and potential hemodynamic instability.  On the other hand, delayed endoscopy delays hemostasis from endoscopic therapy and increases the risk of rebleeding and need for surgery.  I think we all agree that we should resuscitate our patients before endoscopy (or as I like to say resuscitate before you endoscopate), but is there a population of patients with UGIH that require sooner than later endoscopy? To talk about this topic we have a special guest Rory Spiegel.  You can find Rory on twitter as @EMNerd_ or on the EMCrit blog where he discusses methodological issues with studies

The Case of the Lazy Learners outlined a scenario of an emergency attending, Chris, who questions the work-ethic, dedication, and professionalism of his residents after an on-shift teaching interaction. This month, the MEdIC team (Tamara McColl, Teresa Chan, Sarah Luckett-Gatopoulos, Eve Purdy, John Eicken, Alkarim Velji, and Brent Thoma), hosted a discussion around this case with insights from the ALiEM community. We are proud to present to you the Curated Community Commentary and our expert opinions. Thank-you to all participants for contributing to the very rich discussions surrounding this case!

Background: In 2011, we saw 7 million patients in the emergency department (ED) complaining of chest pain. Most of these patients did NOT have an acute coronary syndrome (ACS) or an acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Missing an AMI is one of the biggest fears we have in the ED. By using validated risk scores, we can help decrease the risk of missing AMI and the resultant adverse events. There are multiple scores available for our use. Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction (TIMI) predicts risk of adverse outcomes in the next 14 days. Global Registry of Acute Coronary Events (GRACE) predicts outcomes at 6 months. ED specific scores include HEART and Emergency Department Assessment of Chest Pain (EDACS). But, how well do these scores actually perform? Are we missing AMIs by using these clinical risk scores?