I am Dr. Megan Fix, Associate Program Director: How I Stay Healthy in EM
Dr. Megan Fix is an emergency physician at the University of Utah. For her, staying healthy is all about maintaining your balance, keeping activating, fostering healthy relationships, and knowing and loving oneself. Despite her busy schedule as the Associate Program Director, she makes a point to still keep family time for her husband and her boys. Her positive attitude about life long learning and going with the flow is something we could all learn from. Here’s how she stays healthy in EM! [+]
IDEA Series: Highlighting FOAM Content through an Asynchronous Course
The Problem Many residents regularly consume FOAM (Free Open Access Medical Education) and online educational materials independently, without faculty guidance or input. At the same time, residency programs are looking for ways to provide high-quality asynchronous learning opportunities to their residents while remaining compliant with the Emergency Medicine Residency Review Committee (RRC-EM) Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) guidelines. [+]
A Starter’s Roadmap to EM Resources: Books, Websites, and Apps
With the start of the year, we welcomed a new group of faces into our respective residency programs. We can all still remember how daunting it was to tackle learning the immense volume of material to be a great emergency medicine physician. We have so many amazing resources, but no road maps for where to start. The purpose of this list is to help guide the new interns as well as to highlight some resources that even the more seasoned clinician may find useful. [+]
Using Slack for Residency Communication – Do’s and Dont’s
One of the most difficult parts of residency and medical education is coordination and communication. Often residents and faculty alike can be found drowning in a never ending onslaught of emails, with chains of projects getting buried amongst reply-all’s and attachments. Over the course of the past year, our residency program at Doctors Hospital-OhioHealth in Columbus, Ohio has been using a newer form of communication to facilitate the dissemination of information and collaboration as a group. After some initial exploration into technology and apps, it was decided to try out the program called Slack. Designed to help large groups work [+]
Bark Scorpion Sting: Indications for Anascorp and dosing controversies
The genus Centruroides, also known as the Bark Scorpion, is found throughout the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Many emergency medicine practitioners in the Southwest are exceptionally familiar with the treatment of envenomation from Centruroides as a quarter million are reported annually1,2. Although typically mild envenomations occur in adults, children and the elderly are at increased risk for severe complications3. The toxic syndrome consists of a sympathetic and parasympathetic storm that can result in myocardial damage, involuntary jerking, wandering eye movements, and most threatening – loss of airway. [+]
Diagnosing the central slip injury
Figure 1. Laceration overlying proximal interphalangeal (PIP) joint of right second digit. (Photograph by Daniel Ting and Jared Baylis) A 34-year-old cabinet maker presents to your Emergency Department after accidentally getting his finger caught in a drawer. On examination, he has a superficial, clean laceration over the dorsal surface of the right second digit (Figure 1). In a previous post, we discussed the approach to identifying, treating, and managing extensor tendon injuries of the hand. In it, we advocate for a high index of suspicion for extensor tendon injuries whenever a patient suffers a laceration to the dorsal aspect [+]
MEdIC Series: Case of the Honorary Authorship – Expert Review & Curated Commentary
The Case of the Honorary Authorship outlined a scenario of a senior academic scientist interacting with two more junior researchers, raising issues around publication ethics and professionalism. This month the MEdIC team (Brent Thoma, Sarah Luckett-Gatopoulos, Tamara McColl, Eve Purdy, John Eicken, and Teresa Chan), hosted a discussion around these questions with insights from the ALiEM community. We are proud to present to you the Curated Community Commentary and our 2 expert opinions. Thank-you to all our participants for contributing to the very rich discussions last week. [+]
Trick of the Trade: Tibial Intraosseous Line Stabilization in an Agitated Patient
With the advent of commercial intraosseous (IO) needles for vascular access, administering IV medications for patients in extremis has been made much easier. Securing the IO needle to the patient’s tibia, femur, or humerus, however, is a different story. After successful patient resuscitation, these needles often tenuously secured through creative uses of sterile gauze, trimmed paper cups, bag valve masks, and/or just tape. Stabilization of tibial IO lines can be difficult in a sedated, intubated patient. This can be even more difficult in an agitated, moving patient. [+]
Extensor tendon injuries of the hand: Emergency Department management
You are working in the treatment area with a medical student and she is ready to review a “straightforward” case with you. She presents a young, healthy 27-year-old man with a laceration over the dorsal surface of the left hand after a kitchen mishap. It appears clean, and she doesn’t suspect a foreign body. The neurovascular status seems okay with the intact ability to extend the fingers. Her plan is to repair the wound and send the patient for follow up in 7 to 10 days with his family physician for suture removal. The wound appears superficial, but you are an astute clinician and wonder [+]
I am Dr. Howard Ovens, Department Chief: How I Stay Healthy in EM
Dr. Howard Ovens is an emergency physician and the Chief of the Emergency Department at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. Dr. Ovens takes his personal health and wellness seriously, and is very committed to maintaining his physical fitness. No matter what the challenge or set back is, Dr. Ovens still makes it a top priority to keep his wellness in mind. Here’s how he stays healthy in EM! [+]