There is so much literature to sift through each year, it becomes nearly impossible to stay abreast of it. Here is a quick summary of the 10 must-know Emergency Medicine pharmacotherapy articles from 2015, in my humble opinion.
The next CAPSULES module is in! Part 2 of our 2-part airway series is now published on the Academic Life in EM University (ALiEMU) website. Pharmacology of Airway Management – Part 1 provided some outstanding information on topics such as preoxygenation and apneic oxygenation, awake intubation, delayed sequence intubation, and the pediatric airway. We are excited to announce the next installment of the popular CAPSULES series: Pharmacology of Emergency Airway Management – Part 2.
The emergency department (ED) manages acute pain on a daily basis, ranging from non-traumatic back pain to traumatic fractures. Some providers jump immediately to opioids without considering other non-opioid alternatives or start at incorrect doses. In the age of the opioid epidemic (ALiEM-Annals of EM journal club; bookclub discussing Dreamland) and medication errors, choosing the initial right agent(s) and dose(s) are important. Dr. Nick Koch and Dr. Sergey Motov (@PainFreeED) from Maimonides Medical Center present a thoughtful, evidence-based PV reference card on selecting and dosing initial pain medications for ED patients. Also congratulations to Dr. Motov and his team for their recent 2015 Annals of EM publication1 on subdissociative dose ketamine for analgesia.
They started at once, and went about among the Lotus-eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to them, but were for staying and munching lotus with the Lotus-eaters without thinking further of their return.
— Odyssey IX, translated by Samuel Butler
One of the final common denominators dictating the success or failure of any resuscitative effort, be it a trauma or medical code, is the patient’s acid-base status. In the presence of acidosis, many of the tools at your disposal, including vasopressors, become impotent and the patient’s ability to strike a balance between bleeding and clotting or mounting an appropriate inflammatory response become deranged.1–6 So what are the options to tilt the acid-base status in our favor?
We are thrilled to announce the next installment of ALiEM CAPSULES: Pharmacology of Emergency Airway Management (part 1), which was just published to the ALiEMU site. This is the first part of a 2-part course focusing on the pharmacology of the emergency airway. For this CAPSULES module we are introducing a multimedia-enhanced learning experience. You will find HD videos throughout the module providing further educational content. Some of the quizzes are also accompanied by video cases followed by a question based on the case you just watched. If you cannot use audio on your device, no problem, all videos are closed captioned (just hit the CC button in the YouTube window). We hope these videos further enrich your ALiEMU CAPSULES educational experience and we welcome any suggestions or comments!
Welcome to the second bolus of 60-Second Soapbox! Each episode, one lucky individual gets exactly 1 whole minute to present their rant-of-choice to the world. Any topic is on the table – clinical, academic, economic, or whatever else may interest an EM-centric audience. We carefully remix your audio to add an extra splash of drama and excitement. Even more exciting, participants get to challenge 3 of their peers to stand on a soapbox of their own!
