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.

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2016-10-30T16:19:04-07:00

August 1st, 2015 | Medical Education

By: Michelle Lin, MD

Top 15 Tips for New EM Residency Graduates: The Real World

Although there is much advice on helping new interns adjust to residency life (part 1, part 2), not much is shared about helping recent residency graduates survive the real world of EM practice. Dr. Amal Mattu, Professor and Vice Chair at the University of Maryland’s Department of Emergency Medicine, solicited for advice from his department’s faculty and recent residency graduates. Below are the top 15 themes which arose from the discussion and are frankly great reminders for all practitioners in the ED.

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2016-11-11T19:39:28-07:00

July 23rd, 2015 | Medical Education

By: Michelle Lin, MD

ALiEMU School Doors Open – Featuring the CAPSULES Series

Our virtual school doors are open starting today to ALiEM University (ALiEMU), which can best be thought of as our open-access, on-demand, online school of e-courses for anyone practicing Emergency Medicine worldwide. This ambitious venture was made possible by a tremendous team, but primarily led by Chris Gaafary, MD (@CGaafary), ALiEMU’s Chief of Design and Development and an EM chief resident in his free time at the University of Tennessee. Today we are incredibly excited to launch our inaugural longitudinal e-course the ALiEM Capsules Series: A Practical Pharmacology for the EM Practitioner, created and led by Bryan Hayes, PharmD, FAACT (@PharmERToxGuy).

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2017-10-01T20:26:04-07:00

July 13th, 2015 | Capsules, Medical Education, Social Media & Tech, Tox & Medications

By: Michelle Lin, MD

Sneak peek at ALiEMU: Free on-demand MOOC-like courses featuring the AIR Series

We are incredibly excited to announce the development of our newest project — ALiEMU. This top-secret project has been in the works for only 3 months, but has gained incredible momentum thanks to our all-star team, led by Dr. Chris Gaafary, who is our ALiEMU Chief of Design and Development… while he is not busy being an incoming EM chief resident at the University of Tennessee.

What is ALiEMU? The one-liner is: A free educational website which hosts free, on-demand e-courses, featuring the AIR series as the inaugural course.

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2018-01-30T01:55:29-07:00

May 26th, 2015 | Approved Instructional Resources (AIR series), Medical Education, Social Media & Tech

By: Michelle Lin, MD

APPLY NOW: Essentials of Emergency Medicine & Education Fellowship Program

Who has NOT heard of the Essentials of Emergency Medicine (EEM) conference? It is one of the largest live EM educational conferences in the world with over 2,000 attendees that I have had the pleasure to speak at a few times. The conference planners, led by Dr. Paul Jhun and Dr. Mel Herbert, are creating an amazing opportunity for U.S. EM residents to attend their upcoming EEM conference at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas (October 13-15, 2015).