ALiEM Connect: EM residencies unite in a mega virtual conference
Weekly emergency medicine (EM) residency conferences are not exempt from the #CancelEverything movement as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Residency program leaders are in uncharted water, quickly pivoting to find alternative solutions to live, in-person conference sessions. We at ALiEM emphathize with these hardships and want to help. We announce ALiEM Connect, a live educational telecast with a concurrent moderated backchannel discussion on HIPAA-compliant Slack. We want to help.
Left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) have moved from being a bridge to a heart transplant to destination therapy for patients with severe heart failure. Although their use in the general public has increased, they still provide a challenge to the emergency medicine (EM) physician. This series aims to cover the basics of how the EM physician approaches the care of these patients.
Case: A 32-year-old male with a past medical history of diabetes presents with a 1 month history of finger pain after slamming his finger in a car door. 2 weeks after the initial incident he presented to the emergency department for worsening pain and received x-rays that were negative for acute fracture. Today he presents reporting pain radiating up the hand, arm, and into the shoulder, with associated chills. His labs are significant for hyperglycemia, hyponatremia, and an elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate and c-reactive protein. His x-ray is seen here (figure 1 image courtesy of Daniel Rogan, MD). What is the diagnosis?