ALiEM Socks: Online sales open for our remaining 100 pairs

Every year, we try to get a unique gift for many of our core team members to show our appreciation for them, their tireless enthusiasm and dedication to education, and pioneering spirit. It is only a small token of our appreciation. A few months ago, we have expanded to giving out such gifts to members of our Chief Resident Incubator as well. Inspired by custom socks that the Slack company made for its employees, I thought — why not ALiEM socks?

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By Michelle Lin, MD|2019-01-28T21:42:11-08:00Jan 7, 2016|Sales|

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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By Michelle Lin, MD|2019-01-28T21:42:20-08:00Jan 6, 2016|Medical Education, Social Media & Tech|

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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By Michelle Lin, MD|2019-01-28T21:42:34-08:00Nov 11, 2015|Social Media & Tech|

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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By Michelle Lin, MD|2019-01-28T21:42:50-08:00Oct 23, 2015|ALiEM Cards, Tox & Medications|

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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By Michelle Lin, MD|2019-01-28T21:43:05-08:00Oct 20, 2015|ALiEM Cards, Cardiovascular, Critical Care/ Resus|

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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By Michelle Lin, MD|2019-01-28T21:43:45-08:00Oct 15, 2015|ALiEM Cards, Ultrasound|

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].