APPLY NOW: 2016 Essentials of Emergency Medicine (EEM) Education Fellowship Program

The Essentials of Emergency Medicine (EEM) conference named the Cosmopolitan Hotel (Las Vegas, NV) its new home as of October 2015. The conference is one of the largest live EM educational conferences in the world with over 2,000 attendees. The conference organizers, led by Dr. Paul Jhun, are again offering an amazing opportunity for U.S. EM residents to serve as an EEM Fellow for the next EEM conference in May 10-12, 2016.

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2019-01-28T21:42:20-07:00

January 6th, 2016 | Medical Education, Social Media & Tech

By: Michelle Lin, MD

Best mobile apps for the emergency department (2015 ACEP Live talks)

At the recent 2015 ACEP Scientific Assembly in Boston, many of emergency medicine’s (EM) finest speakers arrived to share their expertise with the EM community. Two were ACEP Live talks, hosted and recorded by the Annals of Emergency Medicine, featuring Dr. Seth Trueger (@MDAware, Assistant Social Media Editor for Annals of EM) and Dr. Iltifat Husain (@iMedicalApps, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of iMedicalApp.com). Do you agree or disagree with their lists? What are your favorite apps?

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2019-01-28T21:42:34-07:00

November 11th, 2015 | Social Media & Tech

By: Michelle Lin, MD

PV Card: Initial Pain Medication Options in the Emergency Department

The emergency department (ED) manages acute pain on a daily basis, ranging from non-traumatic back pain to traumatic fractures. Some providers jump immediately to opioids without considering other non-opioid alternatives or start at incorrect doses. In the age of the opioid epidemic (ALiEM-Annals of EM journal club; bookclub discussing Dreamland) and medication errors, choosing the initial right agent(s) and dose(s) are important. Dr. Nick Koch and Dr. Sergey Motov (@PainFreeED) from Maimonides Medical Center present a thoughtful, evidence-based PV reference card on selecting and dosing initial pain medications for ED patients. Also congratulations to Dr. Motov and his team for their recent 2015 Annals of EM publication¹ on subdissociative dose ketamine for analgesia.

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2019-01-28T21:42:50-07:00

October 23rd, 2015 | ALiEM Cards, Tox & Medications

By: Michelle Lin, MD

PV Card: Continuous End Tidal CO2 Monitoring in Cardiac Arrest

For many years, end tidal CO2 monitoring initially was helpful in differentiating tracheal versus esophageal intubations. Now with continuous end tidal capnography, providers have access to so much more information during a cardiac arrest resuscitation, as summarized by the recently released 2015 American Heart Association (AHA) recommendations.¹ Thanks to Dr. Abdullah Bakhsh from Emory University for a great PV card to help remind us of these key cardiac resuscitation pearls.

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2019-01-28T21:43:05-07:00

October 20th, 2015 | ALiEM Cards, Cardiovascular, Critical Care/ Resus

By: Michelle Lin, MD

PV Card: Normal Values for Ultrasound Measurements

As emergency medicine providers become more proficient in using bedside ultrasonography as a diagnostic tool, it can be difficult to remember all of the normal cutoff values. Is it 3 or 5 mm as the cutoff? Thanks to the team at UCSF (Dr. Maria Beylin, Dr. Scott Fischette, and Dr. Nate Teismann) for creating a succinct PV card listing the key numbers to remember. You can download this PV card into your mobile device as a reference guide, or you can even print and attach to each of your ultrasound machines!

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2019-01-28T21:43:45-07:00

October 15th, 2015 | ALiEM Cards, Ultrasound

By: Michelle Lin, MD

NEXUS Chest CT Decision Instruments in Blunt Trauma

One of the five 2014 American College of Surgeons’ Choosing Wisely recommendations is to avoid routing whole-body CT imaging of trauma patents, also known as the ‘pan-CT’. Until now, no validated decision instrument existed to help guide clinicians decide whether to obtain a chest CT in the setting of blunt trauma. This month, Dr. Robert Rodriguez and the multi-institutional NEXUS Chest CT research team published a paper describing the derivation and validation of 2 decision instruments in PLOS Medicine [1].

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2019-01-28T21:43:56-07:00

October 13th, 2015 | Radiology, Trauma

By: Michelle Lin, MD

2015 ALiEM Essentials of EM Fellowship Winners and Runner-Ups

The 2015 Essentials of EM Fellowship competition was fierce with submissions by U.S. EM residents from around the country. Based on the four predefined judging criteria (design, relevance, content accuracy, and innovation), one submission stood out above the rest. Congratulations to the winner Dr. Gabe Sudario (University of California San Francisco-SFGH), who will attend the 2015 Essentials of EM conference in Las Vegas as the ALiEM Essentials of EM Fellow with all expenses paid. Check out today’s PV card, which was Gabe’s blog submission.