by Prince Asare-Agbo | Oct 30, 2025 | Critical Care, Featured, Grand Round Summaries, Hematology, Resuscitation
Blood tests (especially complete blood counts and coagulation markers) are some of the most commonly ordered investigations in both the emergency department and the hospital at large. It’s important for us as emergency physicians to have an excellent understanding of...
by Lucy Karp | Aug 7, 2025 | Commentary, Critical Care, Grand Round Summaries, Resuscitation
While the term ‘God Squad’ reflects a real committee from the 1960s, we use it here critically to examine the risks of unchecked decision-making power in emergency care. This is a photo of the Admissions and Policy Committee of the Seattle Artificial Kidney Centre,...
by Jessica Tat | Jul 31, 2025 | Critical Care, Featured, Grand Round Summaries, Infectious Disease, Resuscitation, Tropical Medicine
Global travel has surged back in full force following the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing with it an important clinical consideration for emergency physicians—evaluating febrile patients with recent travel history. Despite the growing need, many emergency clinicians still...
by James Gilbertson | Mar 13, 2025 | Featured, Grand Round Summaries, Radiology, Resuscitation, Ultrasound
How did ultrasound become a cornerstone of emergency medicine? What ultrasound skills should an emergency physician in Canada possess? And with the rise of handheld devices and AI-driven diagnostics, where is PoCUS in emergency medicine headed? Here, we are going to...
by Shane Baistrocchi | Feb 13, 2025 | Airway, Anesthesiology, Critical Care, Featured, Grand Round Summaries, Resuscitation
Procedural sedation (PS) is a cornerstone of Emergency Medicine, frequently employed in the Emergency Department (ED) to facilitate painful or anxiety-provoking procedures while ensuring patient comfort. The goal is to achieve optimal sedation while allowing for rapid...
by Rebecca Seliga, Hans Rosenberg, Christian Vaillancourt | Jan 13, 2025 | cardiac arrest, Cardiology, Critical Care, Journal Club, Resuscitation
Methodology: 4/5 Usefulness: 4/5 Vallentin MF, et al. N Engl J Med. 2024 Oct 31. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2407616. Editorial: The Way to a Patient’s Heart – Vascular Access in Cardiac Arrest Question and Methods: This RCT compared IO vs. IV vascular access in...
by Hailey Newton, Hans Rosenberg, Christian Vaillancourt | Jan 6, 2025 | cardiac arrest, Cardiology, Critical Care, Journal Club, Resuscitation
Methodology: 4/5 Usefulness: 3/5 Couper K, et al. N Engl J Med. 2024 Oct 31:10.1056/NEJMoa2407780. Question and Methods: This multi-center, open label randomized control trial aimed to assess 30-day survival in patients with out of hospital cardiac arrest (OOHCA) who...
by Nicholas Choi | Dec 5, 2024 | Anesthesiology, cardiac arrest, Grand Round Summaries, Respirology, Resuscitation
Quantitative End-Tidal CO2 (ETCO2) was in vogue for a while, and seemingly some centres adopted it as standard of care, while others found that it did not make a significant clinical impact so it fell out of style and left to ‘practitioner preference’....
by Shahbaz Syed | Oct 24, 2024 | Airway, Anesthesiology, Commentary, Critical Care, Featured, Resuscitation
Precedex (dexmedetomidine) is an alpha-2 adrenergic agonist increasingly used in critical care environments for sedation and anxiolysis. It offers a unique profile of sedation without respiratory depression, making it an attractive option in various clinical...
by Rebecca Seliga | Oct 17, 2024 | Critical Care, Featured, Grand Round Summaries, pharmacology, Resuscitation, Toxicology
We remain amid an opioid crisis in Canada, with over 8000 deaths (or 22/day) in 2023. The harms of opioid use in society are devastating and cannot be understated – but so too are the harms from stimulant and other substance use. In 2023 there were 3479 apparent...
