Tactical Medicine News Blog

Whistler's Update in Emergency Medicine Conference 2013 in Whistler, British Columbia is U of Toronto's case-based interactive small group EM conference. There were so may great talks with amazing clinical pearls that I decided to wade through the 18 hours of audio recordings and packaged some of the key highlights for you here......EM Literature Review 2012 by Dr. Joel Yaphe, Neonatal Resuscitation Pearls by Dr. Nicole Kester-Greene, Fever of Unknown Origin by Dr. Shirley Lee, Improving Cosmesis in Wound Management by Dr. Maria Ivankovic, Hepato-biliary Disease by Dr. Sara Gray, & Pediatric Cardiac & Respiratory Cases by Dr. Donna Goldenberg. The post Episode 32: Whistler Update in Emergency Medicine Conference 2013 appeared first on Emergency Medicine Cases.

A patient’s contact lens broke when she was trying to take it off.  She feels the pieces are still inside her eye, but she was unable to fish them out. When you look through the slit lamp, you are unable to to see whether there are contact lens pieces inside since they are clear.

Nasogastric lavage (NGL) seems to be a logical procedure in the evaluation of patients with suspected upper GI bleeding, but does the evidence support the logic? Most studies state that endoscopy should occur within 24 hours of presentation, but the optimal timing within the first 24 hours is unclear.  Rebleeding is the greatest predictor of mortality, and these patients benefit from aggressive, early endoscopic hemostatic therapy and/or surgery. So what are the arguments for and against NGL?

As I am getting into my 3rd year of practice as a faculty in Emergency Medicine and Internal Medicine, I have begun to wish I had a better framework for success in academic medicine. Currently, almost on a daily basis, I have to answer about 100 emails, decide if I want to be on different committees, develop curricula, give lectures, do research, work clinically, mentor residents/medical students, and have a work-life balance. Does this sound familiar, and at the same time overwhelming? Recently I read several articles on this very topic and thought maybe I would give some perspective on useful strategies to succeed in academic medicine, get recognized, and still have that healthy work-life balance.

In the past few months, this blog has been successful in working with Google to remove pirating sites, which directly cut and paste all of our content (including PV cards!) directly into their own blog as their own. This broaches the greater question of disclaimers, copyright, and privacy. Last month, Dr. Steve Carroll (EM Basic) nicely summarized these issues and constructed nice language for anyone’s social media productions. In fact, with his permission, I have incorporated much of the wordings into this blog’s disclaimer section (bottom of About Us).