We are excited to introduce the Sixth edition of The Ottawa Handbook of Emergency Medicine. Your bedside guide for approaches to various Emergency Medicine presentations.
Highlights of the Sixth edition include the addition of: Oncologic emergencies, approach to the pregnant patient, geriatrics and more!
Spontaneous Bacterial Peritonitis in Patients with Cirrhosis
Patients with cirrhosis are complex, with a plethora of comorbidities. They often present to emergency departments (ED) very sick, and there are many complications that emergency physicians need to know about. In this post, we’re going to focus on Spontaneous...
Venous Thromboembolism in Transgender & Gender Diverse (TGD) Persons
You are working an urgent care shift and you access your ED electronic track-board to pick up the next patient waiting to be seen: You assign yourself to patient Smith, and notice a helpful comment from your triage nurse stating the patient's name is Angela. You note...
Surviving Sepsis: The 2021 Review
A review of some of the most relevant elements of the 2021 surviving sepsis campaign for the emergency physician. Definitions Our operative definition of sepsis & septic shock are the sepsis-3 definitions [1]. Sepsis: “Sepsis is a life threatening organ...
Urinary Tract Infection: All your questions answered
How many times a shift do you consider a urinary tract infection? As Emergency physicians, you make and/or consider urinary tract infection (UTI) multiple times per shift.1 Actually, up to 5% of ED visits are related to genitourinary complaints.2-4 From simple...
CAEP 2022: Living Together
Morale amongst Emergency Medicine providers is at a crushing low. If you were to walk through any Emergency Department (ED) or spend 5 minutes on #MedTwitter, this would be abundantly apparent. Slogging through a pandemic, EM providers put their heads down – they put...
Pediatric Resuscitation: AHA PALS Updates
Pediatric cardiac arrests are rare occurrences in Canada Due to the infrequency, pediatric cardiac arrest and resuscitation are challenging areas to study so the data we have is limited in scope and quality. This is an area for future research and improvement...
Recommendations for Education about Sexual and Gender Minorities within Canadian Residency Programs
At CAEP 2021, the SLGBTQIA + panel identified perceived or real barriers to the inclusion of sexual and gender minority content in Emergency Medicine residency curriculums. Here, we present an infographic documenting the findings and recommendations from the CAEP...
RAFF-3 Trial: A Stepped-Wedge Cluster Randomised Trial to Improve Care of Acute Atrial Fibrillation and Flutter in the Emergency Department
Methodology: 4/5 Usefulness: 5/5 Stiell IG, et al. Can J Cardiol. 2021 Oct;37(10):1569-1577. Question and Methods: Using a stepped wedge cluster randomized trial, does implementation of the CAEP Best Practice Checklist for acute atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter...
“Is there a doctor on board?”: In-Flight Emergencies
As global COVID-19 travel restrictions loosen, many people are finally taking the vacations they’ve been putting off for the last two years. As passenger air traffic climbs, in-flight medical emergencies will become increasingly frequent. Will you be ready when...
Thrombectomy for anterior circulation stroke beyond 6 h from time last known well (AURORA): a systematic review and individual patient data meta-analysis
Methodology: 3/5 Usefulness: 2/5 Jovin TG, et al. Lancet. 2022 Jan 15;399(10321):249-258. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(21)01341-6. Editorial: Late thrombectomy for ischaemic stroke. Dippel D, et al. Lancet. 2022 Jan 15;399(10321):213-215. Question and Methods: This...