Your Patient In Extremis: THAM To The Rescue?

By |Oct 5, 2015|Categories: Critical Care/ Resus, Expert Peer Reviewed (Clinical), Tox & Medications|

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? [+]

ALiEM Bookclub: Beyond the ED – Recommendations by Dr. Jerry Hoffman

By |Oct 4, 2015|Categories: Book Club|

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” As colleagues in Emergency Medicine (EM) and education we can trace both our roots and see our branches. For many of us, including the bloggers, podcasters, mythbusters, and the skeptics can trace our journey back to Dr. Jerry Hoffman. Dr. Hoffman is internationally known as one of the founders of EM, the lead author of the NEXUS study, one of the hosts of EM abstracts, and the original EM skeptic. It is our distinct pleasure to have Dr. Hoffman contribute to this ALiEM bookclub series. [+]

I am Dr. Sara Gray, Medical Director of Emergency Preparedness: How I Stay Healthy in EM

By |Oct 3, 2015|Categories: Healthy in EM|

Dr. Sara Gray (@EmICUcanada) is an emergency physician and ICU attending at St. Micheal’s Hospital in Toronto. In addition to being the Chair of the CAEP Critical Care Committee (C4), she is also the Medical Director of Emergency Preparedness at St. Mike’s. Despite holding multiple positions, Dr. Gray still finds time to stay well, by staying in touch with her family and maintaining mindfulness. Her love for running and the outdoors, keeps her active and grounded. Check out how she stays healthy in emergency medicine! [+]

MEdIC Series | The Case of the FOAM Promotion – Expert Review and Curated Commentary

By |Oct 2, 2015|Categories: MEdIC series, Medical Education|

Last week, we launched season 3 of the ALiEM MEdIC series and it sure took off! The Case of the FOAM Promotion brought together learners, teachers, and colleagues from across many disciplines to discuss promotion and the conversation nicely evolved to include a discussion of life goals and self-evaluation. We are now proud to present to you the Curated Community Commentary and our 2 expert opinions. Thank-you again to all our experts and participants for contributing again this week to the ALiEM MEdIC series. [+]

Child Whisperer Series: Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

By |Sep 30, 2015|Categories: Child Whisperer Series, Pediatrics|

“Can you help me? I have a patient who is what I like to call, a kid at heart,” asked one of our ED adult nurses. As we walked to the adult side of the ED the nurse let me know that this patient had intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). The adult patient required IV access and had already been poked a few times. Although I do not often work with adults, I knew that remembering a few key Child Life principles could help us care for the patient. [+]

ALiEMU CAPSULES Module 3: Pharmacology of Emergency Airway Management – Part 1

By |Sep 28, 2015|Categories: Capsules, Tox & Medications|

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 [+]

I am Dr. Demian Szyld, Medical Director of NYSIM: How I Stay Healthy in EM

By |Sep 26, 2015|Categories: Healthy in EM|

Dr. Demian Szyld (@DebriefMentor) first contributed to ALiEM when he was a resident at the University of Pennsylvania. He went on to complete the Fellowship in Simulation and Education at STRATUS, the Center for Medical Simulation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and a Masters degree at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He works at NYU Langone Medical Center where he is the Medical Director of the New York Simulation Center for the Health Sciences (NYSIM) and directs the Fellowship in Simulation and Education. Once a week he is an attending physician at Bellevue Hospital in New York. Demian teaches [+]

MEdIC Series | The Case of the FOAM Promotion

By |Sep 25, 2015|Categories: MEdIC series, Medical Education|

Welcome back to season 3 of the ALiEM MEdIC series! The MEdIC team (Brent Thoma, Sarah Luckett-Gatopoulos, Tamara McColl, Eve Purdy, and Teresa Chan) are very excited to kick off the ‘school year’ again with another online discussion within the ALiEM Medical Education in Cases series. Join us now to discuss the case of the FOAM (Free Open Access Meducation) promotion wherein Chris, the assistant professor, finds himself reflecting about whether he should incorporate his online and FOAM works into his promotions package. [+]

AIR-Pro Series: Cardiovascular (2015)

By |Sep 21, 2015|Categories: Approved Instructional Resources PRO (AIR-Pro Series), Cardiovascular|

Below we have listed our selection of the 8 highest quality blog posts related to 3 advanced level questions on cardiovascular topics posed, curated, and approved for residency training by the AIR-Pro Series Board. The blogs relate to the following questions: Advanced concepts about Sgarbossa’s Criteria Troubleshooting pacemaker’s and automated implantable cardioverter defibrillators (AICD’s) Troubleshooting left ventricular assist devices (LVAD’s) In this module, we have 5 AIR-Pro’s and 3 Honorable Mentions. To strive for comprehensiveness, we selected from a broad spectrum of blogs identified through FOAMSearch.net. [+]

New Advanced “AIR Professional” Series: AIR-Pro

By |Sep 21, 2015|Categories: Approved Instructional Resources PRO (AIR-Pro Series), Medical Education|

We are excited to introduce an offshoot of the AIR series (Approved Instructional Resources) called the AIR Professional series! The AIR-Pro series was conceived to answer more advanced level concepts, while continuing to follow the AIR series model of providing a credible method to identify quality blogs and podcasts. Similar to the AIR Series, we hope to provide U.S. Emergency Medicine residents an additional resource for Individualized Interactive Instruction (III) conference credit. [+]