Trick of the Trade: Simple finger traps using gauze roll
Closed reduction of fractures or dislocations in the hand and wrist can be difficulty to achieve. Gravity can serve as an assistant. Commercial finger traps are available, but can sometimes be hard to find in the Emergency Department. An earlier trick of the trade describes the use of a gauze role to build your own finger trap setup. The following describes a simpler way to build finger traps using a gauze roll. [+]
Radiograph-Negative Lateral Ankle Injuries in Children: Occult Growth Plate Fracture or Sprain?
An 7-year-old girl presents to your Emergency Department (ED) with an ankle inversion injury from while performing gymnastics. Plain films of her ankle show no fracture. It has been a long-held presumption that skeletally immature children with fracture-negative radiographs should be immobilized with a cast given the concern for an occult Salter-Harris 1 fracture. “Children do not get sprains” is a common teaching point. But a recent 2016 JAMA Pediatrics article challenges that premise in a prospective cohort study of 135 pediatric patients.1 Can these injuries be managed more like a sprain, utilizing a removable ankle brace? [+]
‘Treat and Release’ after Naloxone – What is the Risk of Death?
Often in the prehospital setting, naloxone is administered by EMS (or possibly a bystander) to reverse respiratory and CNS depression from presumed opioid overdose. The patient then wakes up, and not uncommonly, refuses transport to the hospital. The question is: Is it safe to ‘treat and release?’ Or, rather, what is the risk of death associated with this practice. Last updated: January 2, 2019 [+]
Trick of the Trade: Paraphimosis – Pour Some Sugar On Me
Paraphimosis occurs when a retracted foreskin can’t be reduced back over the glans of the penis. Risk factors for paraphimosis include scarring, vigorous sexual activity, chronic balanoposthitis, and forgetting to replace the foreskin after catheterization or manipulation. Paraphimosis can be a urological emergency as the tight ring formed by the foreskin can cause ischemia to the tip of the penis and eventually gangrene. Timely reduction is of high importance. Treatment involves gentle compression of the glans and gradual manual foreskin retraction.1 Unfortunately, as time goes on, more swelling occurs making traditional reduction techniques more difficult. [+]
Trick of the Trade: Ear Irrigation in the Emergency Department
Ear irrigation is an important tool for adult and pediatric patients in the Emergency Department (ED) with ENT complaints. Irrigation can be used to clear ear cerumen, visualize tough-to-see tympanic membranes, and remove foreign bodies. This may reduce the need for subspecialist care and improve the patient’s hearing and quality of life.1 Commercial electronic and mechanical devices are available for irrigation and have been studied. Moulton and Jones presented the improved efficacy of foreign body removal using an electric ear syringe in an (ED) population.2 In this trick of the trade, we present a low cost and effective way of “ear-rigation” [+]
Diagnose on Sight: Case of a red, swollen neck
Case: A 78 year-old female with a past medical history of asthma and hypothyroidism presents with a three day history of sore throat and a two day history of a “lump” along the right side of her neck. The “lump” has now progressed to involve both sides of her anterior neck and is accompanied with erythema, tenderness to palpation, and swelling. In addition, the patient has developed a hoarse voice and odynophagia. The patient’s primary care physician referred her to an ENT specialist, who then referred the patient to the ED for urgent imaging due to the concern for a deep space [+]
PV Card: Introduction to ED Charting and Coding
Editor’s Note (Jan 13, 2023): The new AMA CPT 2023 Documentation Guidelines have completely revamped how the billing and coding for Emergency Department charts is done. See the ACEP FAQ page on the 2023 Emergency Department Evaluation and Management (E/M) Guidelines. What makes a good chart? How do you write a good chart quickly? How about a good, efficient, billable chart? On average, residents and practicing physicians report they did not receive adequate training in charting and coding [1–3] and resident charts are more often down-coded due to documentation failures than those of attendings and PAs [4]. Thankfully, resident [+]
ALiEM Book Club: A Thousand Naked Strangers: A Paramedic’s Wild Ride to the Edge and Back
“EMS is wild and imperfect. Just like our patients. It’s dangerous and a little mad and possibly contagious…patients don’t come to us… we go to them, and where and how we find them, well, that, too, is part of the story. once in the field, we should expect no help.” – Kevin Hazzard [+]
Tanner Gronowski, DO
Tips for Interpreting the CSF Opening Pressure
In Emergency Medicine, we are like Goldilocks when it comes to many things: We don’t like a patient’s PaO2 to be too high or too low. We don’t like the bed too high or too low when we intubate. We get concerned when we see a potassium that is too high or too low. The Goldilocks principle is also true of opening pressures on a lumbar puncture (LP). This post will discuss what the opening pressure means, and a differential diagnosis for when it is too high or too low and even when it is in the normal range. [+]
Trick of the Trade: Ocular ultrasound for the swollen traumatic eye
You are caring for a patient with an incredibly swollen eye – like a scene out of almost any Rocky film. This patient is likely going to the CT scanner, but regardless of the finding (retrobulbar hematoma, orbital wall fracture, etc.) you still need to evaluate for extraocular muscle entrapment and loss of pupillary response. There’s only one problem: you can’t see the eye. The old standards like getting the patient to retract their lid using paperclips or a cotton swab may help, but sometimes there is just too much swelling, and those techniques are just not enough. Without brute force – [+]
Director of Growth, Strategic Alliance Initiative, Center for Innovation and Digital Health
Massachusetts General Hospital;
Chief Scientific Officer, Conductscience.com
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