Patients with both burn and inhalation injuries have significantly increased morbidity and mortality compared to those with just burn injuries alone, as there are multiple toxic industrial chemicals that act on the respiratory tract. In this post, we review inhalational injuries and the most common Toxic Industrial Chemicals leading toRead More →
Blast injuries resulting from explosions have the capacity to cause life-threatening multisystem injuries in multiple victims simultaneously. The biggest potential challenge in managing blast injuries is the creation of large numbers of simultaneous critically ill casualties. Once notified of a possible bombing or explosion, Emergency Physicians should immediately consider activatingRead More →
Journal Club Summary Methodology Score: 4.5/5 Usefulness Score: 4.5 /5 van der Pol LM, et al. N Engl J Med. 2019 Mar 21;380(12):1139-1149 Question and Methods: Using a prospective cohort study of 510 pregnant women, the authors were trying to see whether an algorithm could safely diagnose PEs and avoidRead More →
Journal Club Summary Methodology Score: 2.5/5 Usefulness Score: 3/5 Prins HJ, et al. Eur Respir J. 2019 May 23;53(5). Question and Methods: The CATCH Study was a multicentre, randomised, controlled open intervention clinical trial comparing CRP guided antibiotics for COPDE vs the Gold Strategy Findings: The study had a 14.5%Read More →
Emergency Resuscitative Thoracotomy (ERT) is a potentially lifesaving intervention. It is a true salvage procedure, without which survival is essentially zero, even in indicated scenarios. After reading this post, you’ll be slightly more comfortable should you ever find yourself in a situation where you need to “crack the chest” (i.e.Read More →
Journal Club Summary Methodology: 3.5/5 Usefulness: 2.5/5 Ma H, et al N Engl J Med. 2019 May 9;380(19):1795-1803 Editorial: Image-Guided Intravenous Alteplase for Stroke – Shattering a Time Window. Question and Methods: This was an international, multicenter, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of intravenous tPA in patients with stroke who presented 4.5-9 hours afterRead More →
There was a significant amount of pre-hospital research published in 2018; many trials were that will no doubt inform future guidelines and change practice. This post seeks to look at some of the historical features of prehospital research and give us a road map for how we got here. Pre-HospitalRead More →
Journal Club Summary Pellatt R, et al. Ann Emerg Med. 2019 Mar 7. pii: S0196-0644(19)30059-9. Methodology Score: 3/5 Usefulness Score: 3.5/5 Question and Methods: Randomized control trial of 97 adult emergency department patients comparing buddy taping vs. ulnar gutter splinting, in acute, uncomplicated neck of 5th metacarpal (Boxer) fractures. Findings: At 12 weeksRead More →
In the final post of this 3-part series on concussions, Dr. Erica Lee discusses how to recognize and manage post-concussion complications, and hopes to raise awareness on the legislation and public health burden around concussions. If you haven’t already, please refer to our previous posts for an up-to-date definition ofRead More →
Journal Club Summary Casey JD, et al. N Engl J Med. 2019 Feb 28;380(9):811-821. Methodology Score: 3.5/5 Usefulness Score: 3.5/5 Question and Methods: Multicenter, unblinded RCT in 7 ICUs comparing rates of hypoxia in patients undergoing BVM vs no ventilation during the period between induction and laryngoscopy. Findings: Compared to no ventilationRead More →