Tactical Medicine News Blog

Wellen’s Syndrome was first described in 1982 in which 75% of patients with t wave inversions in V2-V4 went on to have an acute myocardial infarction (MI). This was again repeated in 1989, and showed that all patients with this morphology had >50% LAD stenosis. The incidence in the United States is about 10-15%.

Acute uncomplicated cystitis is becoming more difficult to treat in the setting of increasing antimicrobial resistance. In the 2010 IDSA Guideline, as summarized in a PV Card on Cystitis and Pyelonephritis in Women, nitrofurantoin is now listed as the first-line choice, surpassing ciprofloxacin and sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim from the previous iteration.

Patients with hypotension or shock have high mortality rates, and traditional physical exam techniques can be misleading. Diagnosis and initial care must be accurate and prompt to optimize patient care. Ultrasound is ideal for the evaluation of critically ill patients in shock, and ACEP guidelines now delineate a new category of ultrasound (US)– “resuscitative.” Bedside US allows for direct visualization of pathology and differentiation of shock states. The RUSH Protocol was first introduced in 2006 by Weingart SD et al, and later published in 2009. It was designed to be a rapid and easy to perform US protocol (<2 minutes) by most emergency physicians. How do you perform the RUSH protocol?

Have you heard of the Pediatric Assessment Triangle? Taught in the Pediatric Education for Prehospital Professionals (PEPP) certification course, it provides a clear and simple approach to the emergency assessment of pediatric patients. The following PV card summarizes the PAT:

Worldwide, death from cardiac arrest in the out-of-hospital setting remains the leading cause of mortality. Focuses have aimed at improving bystander CPR, public access to AEDs, minimizing chest compression interruptions, and decreasing the emphasis on advanced airway management. This latter concept has become so important that the AHA/ASA have now changed their “ABC” philosophy to “CAB.” Below is the review of the literature that has changed this philosophy.