A patient comes into the ED and you suspect septic arthritis to the knee. As you consent the patient for arthrocentesis, you can tell s/he has reservations about a needle being inserted into their knee and left in place while you aspirate. You also think in the back of your mind how tricky it is to sometimes change syringes while keeping the needle in the correct location. Is there another way of tapping the knee without a needle?
Think back to your last severely hypoglycemic and lethargic patient presenting to the ED. What was the first treatment modality that came to mind? The initial knee-jerk reaction might be to reach for that big blue box of D50 if the patient has IV access. After all, top priority is to reverse hypoglycemia as fast as possible. But in the midst of stabilizing the patient, how often do we consider the potential aftermath of concentrated glucose?
Last year, we launched a new initiative to bring on solicited Expert Peer Reviewers (EPR) for selected posts. These reviewers would need to have specific credentials, such as having previously published in a journal or textbook, presented the topic at a national conference, or have extra training in the area. In fact, we have added this as an required feature for all posts which have come through our New Submissions process. We wish to thank all our expert peer reviewers, who have kindly provided their open comments, which have significantly added to the educational value of the post. Below lists the 22 ALiEM expert peer reviewed posts in 2014:
You are resuscitating a hypotensive patient with severe sepsis and have just hung your 4th liter of crystalloid. On the fluid bags, you wrote the numbers 1 through 4 in permanent marker to help keep track of your resuscitation. As you finish placing your central line the charge nurse enters the room. He informs you that according to the Institute for Safe Medical Practices (ISMP), writing directly on IV bags with permanent marker is not recommended due to concerns that the ink will leach into the bag and potentially cause harm to your patient.1–4
This situation raises several questions:
Welcome to another ultrasound-based clinical case, part of the “Ultrasound For The Win!” (#US4TW) Case Series! In this peer-reviewed case series, we focus on real clinical cases where bedside ultrasound changed the management or aided in diagnoses. In this month’s case, a 93-year-old female presents to the Emergency Department with crushing chest pain.
If you’re like me, you learned and then promptly forgot the Henderson Hasselbalch equation (HH eq) in medical school.1 After all, in clinical rotations it was never invoked, and our patients seemed to have fared well without it. So why bring up the topic now?
Medicine is changing. The ubiquitous nature of computing allows a level of sophistication exponentially greater than before. To a large extent we’re freed from much of the onerous work of rote memorization. In the ideal, that should free us to be more thoughtful about the way we approach our work and to have a deeper understanding of health and disease. Going forward, medicine will become increasingly computational. With that in mind, I’ll make three points about the HH eq.
We’re all pretty familiar with the banana bag: intravenous (IV) fluids with the addition of thiamine, folic acid, multivitamins, and sometimes magnesium. Banana bags are commonly utilized in patients at risk for alcohol withdrawal symptoms or those who present to the emergency department (ED) acutely intoxicated.