Tactical Medicine News Blog

It can be a daunting task to write a medical simulation cases. Regardless of prior experience in simulation, writing cases is a different skill set than programming or working a high fidelity simulator. It’s more similar to writing a play– at times an impromptu play! What is a Medical Simulation Case? It usually entails a patient encounter with a healthcare provider (learner) where an event occurs, and the learner is expected to perform actions. After some time, or after certain actions are performed, the facilitator stops the simulation, and debriefing ensues.

Bell’s Palsy is an idiopathic unilateral facial nerve paralysis. Since the 2009 Cochrane review1 showing that antivirals added no benefit to corticosteroids in Bell’s Palsy, I stopped prescribing them. The NNT.com site has concluded the same. Looking at the literature a little more, the recommendations are a little murkier. Some groups are still advocating for antivirals for severe cases, because there may be a very small but questionably positive benefit.

Emergency physicians are constantly challenged with fishing foreign bodies out of various orifices such as ears, as shown here in an earlier Trick of the Trade using a tissue adhesive. What do you do when an overweight person presents with the cotton portion of a Q-tip lodged in his umbilicus? Skin retractors and direct probing were unsuccessful in removing the cotton.

There was a great article written by Dr. Brian Hodges (@BDHodges1) and published in Academic Medicine1 in 2010. Dr. Cunningham (@amcunningham) provided the link via Twitter in a discussion about different models of competence in medical education.

Do you use a PICO method to answering a clinical question using the medical literature? Patient / problem Intervention Comparison Outcome This two-part series provides an introduction in how to search the medical literature to answer your clinical question. This provides a concise overview of epidemiology and statistics.