Here is another installment of the Paucis Verbis (In a Few Words) e-card series on the topic of CNS infections from EM Clinics of North America 2009.
Adapted from [1]
Go to ALiEM (PV) Cards for more resources.
A few days I wrote about my “peripheral brain” note cards that I carry with me on each ED shift. These cards contain brief summaries of updated guidelines, evidence based literature, and clinical pearls. I constantly get requests for a copy of them, but they are fairly outdated now that I’m out of residency.
So starting today, I’m going to start periodically posting new note cards in Word and PDF format that can be printed on any 4×6 inch index card. These will be posted every Friday. Feel free to download, edit, change font or font size, and use. You can add/remove cards as you collect them. Comments are definitely welcome.
“Paucis verbis” means “in a few words” in Latin. I’ll initially start reviewing new articles from the Emergency Medicine Clinics of North America publication series. This is my favorite review resource in EM. It comes out every 3 months.
My first Paucis Verbis card will be a duo review. The first article is on shock by a super-star friend of mine, Dr. Matt Strehlow (Stanford). The second is first-authored by Dr. Philip Perera (Columbia) on the RUSH Exam and the role of ultrasonography in shock resuscitation.
Adapted from [1, 2]
Go to ALiEM (PV) Cards for more resources.
In a sneak peek of my ACEP News’ Tricks of the Trade column, Dr. Patrick Lenaghan, Dr. Ralph Wang, and I will discuss how bedside ultrasonography can significantly improve your ocular exam.
Here is a classic example. A patient presents with acute onset right eye pain and blurry vision. She possibly has a field cut in her vision. Her pupils are a teeny 2 mm in size in the brightly-lit Emergency Department. You are having a hard time getting a good fundoscopic exam to comfortably rule-out a retinal detachment.
Medicolegal woes often can be tracked back to poor documentation by the physician.
This article is a retrospective chart review of 384 EM resident charts, focusing on the documentation of the neurologic exam. Charts were selected if their chief complaints were neurologic or psychiatric in nature. A non-validated measurement tool for evaluating a neurologic exam was created based on discussions with attending emergency physicians. I have to agree with the chosen criteria. Documentation in each of the following criterion receives 1 point for a maximum score of 8.
A man recently presents with knee pain after pivoting and torquing his knee while falling. He complains of concurrent mild ankle pain. He presents with this tib-fib xray. Realizing that a proximal fibular fracture can present concurrently with a medial malleolus fracture or deltoid ligament rupture, we obtained xrays of the ankle. We were looking for a Maisonneuve fracture.
Gently instilling a fluorescein drop into a patient’s eye requires that the patient keep his/her eye still. What do you do for a patient who can’t quite stay still enough, such as an infant? This is an innovative trick of the trade, written by Dr. Sam Ko (Loma Linda EM resident) and Kimberly Chan (Loma Linda medical student).
We commonly encounter ocular complaints in the Emergency Department. Eye pain can result from chemical exposure, a foreign body, or infection. The first step involves instilling a few drops of topical anesthetics, such as proparacaine, to provide some pain relief. Occasionally, however, you encounter a patient who just can’t keep his/her eye open because of the fear of eyedrops.