Tactical Medicine News Blog

Emergency medicine is full of surprises, twists, and turns. We don’t know what type of patient we will encounter prior to a shift, but we are ready for any and all. That being said, preparation is essential prior to the arrival of critical patients. This is why the airway cart is checked before starting a shift or the position of the bedside ultrasound machine is always mentally tracked in order to quickly grab if needed. Unfortunately, individual preparation is not sufficient for large scale disasters. This level of preparation must happen on a hospital and interdepartmental level such as coordination between trauma surgery, orthopedics, and emergency medicine with agreed upon policies.

Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy was first described in Japan in 1990 and  in the United States in 1998. It was named after an octopus trap (“tako-tsubo”) due to the shape of the trap being similar to the appearance of the left ventricular (LV) apical ballooning that occurs in this condition.  Why is this condition so important to know? It can mimic acute coronary syndrome and most patients go to the emergency department because they are worried they are having an acute myocardial infarction.  

A patient presents with an anterior shoulder dislocation on x-ray. Your ED just received 5 new patients via ambulance and you are trying to prioritize your patients as they come in the door. What can you do for your patient with the shoulder dislocation in the meantime?  

It is well known that primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI) is the gold standard in STEMI treatment and that decreased door-to-balloon time has better patient outcomes. Guidelines recommend that the interval between arrival at the hospital and intracoronary balloon inflation (door-to-balloon time) should be 90 minutes or less.

In this episode Dr. Don Melady, Canada's leading educator in Geriatric Emergency Medicine (Geri-EM) & Dr. Jaques Lee, one of Canada's leading researchers in Geri-EM, discuss the common yet challenging Geriatric Emergencies: a practical approach to geriatric Delirium, best practice for managing agitation and pain in the older patient, management of recurrent falls, pearls in the assessment of the 'Weak & Dizzy' geriatric patient, atypical presentations of common life threatening emergencies including ACS and surgical abdomen, key drug interactions in the geriatric patient and more.. The post Episode 34: Geriatric Emergency Medicine appeared first on Emergency Medicine Cases.