Just-in-Time Training for Emergency Medicine Radial Arterial Line Placement
A 63-year-old male presents for acute onset of headache, neck pain, and altered mental status. He has a prior history of hypertension and hyperlipidemia but recently lost his insurance and has been unable to fill his medications. As a well-informed 2nd year resident, you suspect the presence of a ruptured subarachnoid hemorrhage and arrange an expedited trip to the CT scanner. The patient’s blood pressure continues to remain elevated and you initiate an antihypertensive drip. You decide that in order to have accurate titration, you need more reliable data and decide to place a radial arterial line. However, the last two arterial lines you placed did not go according to plan! Before you start the procedure, you decide to review the procedure and some common pitfalls in placing radial arterial lines. You remember your attendings telling you during prior attempts to do things a certain way and you want to incorporate these in your practice.
