Trick of the Trade: Making the NG and NP procedures less painful

When doing nasogastric (NG) tubes and fiberoptic nasopharyngoscopy (NP) procedures, there many approaches in how patients can be locally anesthetized. Getting things pushed up your nose is so profoundly irritating that most patients only give you 1 or 2 changes to get it right.

One option is to use nebulized lidocaine, although it takes a while to prepare and anecdotally tends to numb mainly the hypopharynx, placing the patient at risk for aspiration later on. Another option is to use viscous lidocaine to coat the NG or NP tubing, but this is fairly messy and only mildly helpful. Commercial intranasal atomizers, which disperse lidocaine over the nasal mucosal surfaces well, are generally effective, but may not be available in some emergency departments.

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By Michelle Lin, MD|2019-02-22T13:34:02-08:00Apr 23, 2013|Tricks of the Trade|

Patwari Academy video: Altered mental status

Get an organized approach on the broad chief complaint of “Altered Mental Status”. Learn about the AEIOU TIPS mnemonic om this 20 minute video by Dr. Rahul Patwari.

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By Michelle Lin, MD|2019-01-28T22:00:05-08:00Apr 21, 2013|Patwari Videos|

Be a great speaker: 10 practical pearls (part 5 of 5)

For the CORD Distinguished Educator’s Coaching Program, Dr. Gus Garmel has kindly offered to share his top 50 points to improve one’s speaking skills. These tips are great for anyone who plans to do public speaking. Thus far, this “be a great speaker” series has reviewed 40 pearls.

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By Michelle Lin, MD|2019-12-21T11:54:58-08:00Apr 13, 2013|Medical Education|

Writing content for social media? Protect yourself!

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). (more…)

By Michelle Lin, MD|2016-12-20T11:19:42-08:00Apr 7, 2013|Medical Education, Social Media & Tech|

Be a great speaker: 10 practical pearls (part 4 of 5)

For the CORD Distinguished Educator’s Coaching Program, Dr. Gus Garmel has kindly offered to share his top 50 points to improve one’s speaking skills. These tips are great for anyone who plans to do public speaking. Thus far, this “be a great speaker” series has reviewed 30 pearls.

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By Michelle Lin, MD|2019-12-21T11:55:06-08:00Apr 6, 2013|Medical Education|

Rivaroxaban for Pulmonary Embolism: One pill and done?

With Dr. Jeff Tabas giving a lecture on the perennially hot topic of pulmonary embolism (PE) at the upcoming UCSF High Risk EM Conference (main link, PDF Brochure) in San Francisco May 22-24, 2013, I thought I would get a sneak peek into his discussion points.

Rivaroxaban for Pulmonary Embolism: One pill and done?
By Prathap Sooriyakumaran, MD and Jeffrey Tabas, MD
UCSF-SFGH Emergency Medicine (more…)

By Michelle Lin, MD|2018-08-23T19:16:55-07:00Apr 3, 2013|Cardiovascular, Pulmonary, Tox & Medications|

Be a great speaker: 10 practical pearls (part 3 of 5)

For the CORD Distinguished Educator’s Coaching Program, Dr. Gus Garmel has kindly offered to share his top 50 points to improve one’s speaking skills. These tips are great for anyone who plans to do public speaking. Thus far, this “be a great speaker” series has reviewed 20 pearls.

(more…)

By Michelle Lin, MD|2019-12-21T11:55:24-08:00Mar 30, 2013|Medical Education|

About Michelle Lin, MD