Across the medical profession, an essential skill is to be able to understand and interpret original research publications to guide your evidence-based practices. Dr. Rahul Patwari reviews the basics of statistics, specifically sensitivity and specificity, predictive values, probability, and the tradeoff between sensitivity and specificity.
Over the past 4+ years, ALiEM has grown to be an exciting educational blog which focuses on the clinical, educational, and academic aspects of emergency medicine. It has far exceeded any of my expectations and has been an incredibly valuable and rewarding experience for me personally. Since its inception, the site has transitioned from a single-author site to a site with a superstar team of authors who cover a diverse range of clinical (e.g. cardiovascular, critical care, geriatric EM, pharmacology) and educational (book club, MEdiC series, educational pedagogies) content as well as an expert peer-review system. As now the blog’s Editor in Chief, I am constantly amazed that we have been successful on pretty much a small, self-funded budget. Going forward, I now realize that the blog’s continued growth and creative strategies are rate-limited by funding.
Mentorship is critical to the success of people throughout one’s career with regards to productivity, career satisfaction, and professional development. Often one has several mentors who each serve unique purposes such as doing research, writing grants, balance work-life issues, and navigation departmental politics. Being a mentor is often a thankless job. In this survey, thank your mentor by sharing lessons that you have learned from him/her. Great pearls are worth sharing.
Complications from left ventricular assist devices (LVAD) increasingly account for Emergency Department visits. What are LVADs? They are a short-term, artificial, circulatory device which performs the function of a very poorly functioning heart. It is important to understand the myriad of complications that can arise and the general approach to patients with an LVAD. These two short videos by Dr. Rahul Patwari summarize these in a nutshell.
Metacarpal fractures are commonly present to the Emergency Department for care. The plain film shown here shows metacarpal neck fractures of the middle and ring finger shown. There are specific criteria requiring closed reduction in the ED (PV Card). Generally ANY rotational angulation requires reduction. Detection of such angulation depends on the clinical exam rather than the plain film. How does one diagnose it?
Rob Bryant, MD (@RobJBryant13), Amie Hatch, PharmD, BCPS (@Amie_EMPharmD), and Jeremy Bair, PharmD (@bairpharm) from Intermountain Healthcare in Utah have created and adopted a fantastic medication reference card which is used by physicians and nurses in the Emergency Department. The medications were chosen because they are often prone to dosing errors and require time-sensitive ordering. They generously offered to share this incredibly compact resource for free to the Emergency Medicine community as a PV card. If you see them, give them a high-five.
Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) guidelines were most recently reviewed in Circulation 2010 1 based on the International Consensus on Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiovascular Care Science which includes treatment recommendations. Dr. Rahul Patwari nicely summarizes these findings in this series of 8 videos