The prevalence of hyperthyroidism in the general population is about 1-2%, and is ten times more likely in women than men. The spectrum of hyperthyroidism ranges from asymptomatic or subclinical disease to thyroid storm. So how do we diagnose various presentations of hyperthyroidism in the Emergency Department? Below are answers to 7 common questions that commonly arise.
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In part 2 of this Evidence Based Medicine series by Dr. Rahul Patwari, more advanced statistical concepts are reviewed. These concepts include ROC curves, screening tests, probability (multiplication and addition rules) and the binomial theorem. Sounds daunting but these short videos really condenses the concepts into digestible lessons.
The faculty and fellows of the UCSF EMS/Disaster Fellowship Program met monthly over the past 2 years to to write a study guide for for the EMS Medical Board exam based on the National Association of EMS Physician’s (NAEMSP) seminal textbook Emergency Medical Services: Clinical Practice and Systems Oversight [Amazon link] (Kendall Hunt Publishers, David C Cone, Robert E O’Connor and Raymond L Fowler, Series Editors, 2009). We condensed approximately 1,800 pages into 69 pages with a simple format: summary of material and take home messages to help improve our EMS system. (more…)
Imagine a consult service located IN the ED. The consultants are some of the friendliest people you’ve met and are there to help you. They tirelessly go out of their way to guide you through hospital protocols, help you with treatments, keep a close eye on your work, and ensure that you and your patients stay out of trouble. Not only are these consultants helpful to you, but also your residents, mid-levels, nurses, and the admitting teams. Everything they know, they teach you – and some are very active in FOAMed and emergency medicine research.
It’s been a month since we started adding expert peer reviews to our blog posts, and we have had a flurry of engaging conversation surrounding the new process. During this time we have worked to develop a sustainable peer review process. In fact there are two ongoing expert peer-review processes:
After seeing your fifth young patient of the day with chronic pelvic pain, constipation, and irritable bowel syndrome, it is easy to be lulled into the mindset that abdominal pain is nothing to worry about. Not so with the elderly. These 10 tips will help focus your approach to atraumatic abdominal pain in older adults and explain why presentations are frequently subtle and diagnoses challenging.
Across the medical profession, an essential skill is to be able to understand and interpret original research publications to guide your evidence-based practices. Dr. Rahul Patwari reviews the basics of statistics, specifically sensitivity and specificity, predictive values, probability, and the tradeoff between sensitivity and specificity.