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Mechanical Ventilation Basics

by Cameron Leafloor | January 25, 2024 | Airway, Anesthesiology, cardiac arrest, Critical Care, Featured, Recently Featured, Respirology | 0 Comments

Mechanical ventilation has a lot of nuance associated with it, but a lot of reference guides focus on care in the ICU. There is certainly a need for more practical application for the ED doc or initial setup of patients on the vent. With both ER and ICU experience,...

By the Hammer of Thora: Pleural Effusions in the ED (part 1)

by Alie Wudwud | August 15, 2024 | Anesthesiology, Cardiothoracic Surgery, Critical Care, Featured, Grand Round Summaries, Infectious Disease, Recently Featured, Respirology, Resuscitation | 0 Comments

Assessing patients with pleural effusions in the emergency department (ED) can be challenging and unclear. This is largely due to the lack of guidelines around pleural effusions in the ED. In this post, I’ve tried to highlight some key information about an approach to...

Stable Vaginal Bleeding in Pregnancy

by Caitlin Hutchings | November 21, 2024 | Featured, OBGYN, Recently Featured | 0 Comments

A common Emergency Department (ED) presentation, vaginal bleeding in pregnancy affects approximately 30% of pregnancies in the 1st trimester and 1-2% in the 2nd trimester. About half of these result in pregnancy loss. Here we will use cases to highlight an ED approach...

Delirium revisited

by Simranjeet Singh | October 31, 2024 | Featured, Geriatrics, Grand Round Summaries, Infectious Disease, Recently Featured | 0 Comments

Delirium is a medical emergency. It is characterized by acute disturbance of consciousness, with changes in perceptual disturbances and fluctuation of symptoms. Delirium is often the initial manifestation of an underlying acute illness and can be present before fever,...

Nailed it! A guide to Fingertip Injuries

by Caroline Gregory | January 16, 2025 | Featured, Grand Round Summaries, Orthopedics, Recently Featured, Trauma | 0 Comments

A stable and functional fingertip is essential for sensation, fine motor skills, grip strength, and the overall durability and cosmetic appearance of the hand. Fingertips, often the first point of contact during daily activities, are particularly susceptible to...

Lung Protective Ventilation

by Cameron Leafloor | February 1, 2024 | Anesthesiology, cardiac arrest, Critical Care, Featured, Recently Featured, Respirology | 1 Comment

In our first part, we talked about the basics of mechanical ventilation and how to set up the ventilator for the busy ED doc! In part two, we discuss lung protective ventilation and go through a few cases to help solidify what we've learned. If you haven't read part...

Invasive Group A Strep (iGAS).. It’s Backkkk (Part 1)

by Max Zworth | July 11, 2024 | cardiac arrest, Critical Care, Dermatology, Grand Round Summaries, Infectious Disease, Recently Featured | 0 Comments

In Fall 2023, I was working an evening shift at a community hospital when we got a patch. A 3-year-old girl was being brought in by EMS with an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. CPR was ongoing, and their ETA was 10 minutes. We prepared the ED for the patient’s arrival....

Posterior Circulation Strokes

by Kathleen O'Connell | March 14, 2024 | Critical Care, Featured, Grand Round Summaries, Neurology, Recently Featured, Resuscitation | 1 Comment

Posterior circulation ischemia accounts for approximately 20-25% of all ischemic strokes and is a significant cause of patient disability. The diagnosis can be extremely challenging as findings are often not typically focal. Posterior strokes are misdiagnosed more...

Functional Neurologic Disorders

by Maria Berliant | April 11, 2024 | Featured, Grand Round Summaries, Neurology, psychiatry, Recently Featured | 0 Comments

Note: This grand rounds presentation and summary had contributions from Dr. Anne-Marie Abe, a neuropsychiatrist specializing in functional neurological disorders in Ottawa. Patients living with functional neurologic disorders (FND) have been deeply stigmatized...

These are the ‘Roids you are looking for – Steroids in the ED

by Naman Arora | January 9, 2025 | Critical Care, Endocrinology, Featured, Grand Round Summaries, Infectious Disease, Recently Featured | 0 Comments

In the acute care setting, steroids have various usages and indications, but their usage can often be nuanced. From adrenal crises to septic shock, severe community-acquired pneumonia, and even acute pharyngitis, steroids play a pivotal role in managing a variety of...

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!

Platelets: who needs them?

by emottawa | Aug 27, 2015

Platelets: too much, too little, don't work. The approach to platelet emergencies is perhaps a little bit more complicated than that, so we attempt to breakdown a simplified approach to platelets in the Emergency Department (ED). Patients with various disease...

Clinical prediction model to aid emergency doctors managing febrile children at risk of serious bacterial infections: diagnostic study

by emottawa | Aug 17, 2015

Journal Club Summary Methodology Score: 2.5/5 Usefulness Score: 2/5 Nijman RG, et al. BMJ. 2013 Apr 2;346:f1706. Full Article This was a derivation, cross-validation, and external validation of a decision rule for the febrile pediatric patient to identify who is at...

Abdominal X-Rays: What’s the Point?

by emottawa | Aug 14, 2015

Undifferentiated abdominal pain; three words that give every Emergency Physician (EP) the shivers. Plain abdominal X-Ray’s (AXR) are a commonly ordered test in the Emergency Department (ED). Does the AXR play any role in the diagnostic workup of constipation? As CT...

Nebulized hypertonic saline for bronchiolitis in the emergency department: a randomized clinical trial

by emottawa | Aug 10, 2015

Journal Club Summary Methodology Score: 3/5 Usefulness Score: 2.5/5 Florin TA, Shaw KN, Kittick M, Yakscoe S, Zorc JJ. JAMA Pediatr. 2014Jul;168(7):664-70. Full Article This single-centre triple-blinded study compared nebulized 3% saline (hypertonic) to 0.9%...

Prehospital ticagrelor in ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction

by emottawa | Jul 27, 2015

Journal Club Summary Methodology Score: 4/5 Usefulness Score: 3/5 Montalescot G, van 't Hof AW, Lapostolle F, et al. for the ATLANTIC Investigators. N Engl J Med. 2014 Sep 11;371(11):1016-27. Full Article This corporate-sponsored international, multicenter, RCT...

Canadian Headache Society systematic review and recommendations on the treatment of migraine pain in emergency settings

by emottawa | Jul 20, 2015

Journal Club Summary Methodology Score: 3.5/5 Usefulness Score: 4/5 Orr SL, et al. Cephalalgia. 2014 May 29. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24875925 This Canadian Headache Society guideline for ED management of acute migraine gave a strong...

Epi Lessons – Part 5 – PROGNOSIS AND OTHER ARTICLES

by EMOttawa | Jul 14, 2015

As part of our Journal Club summaries our JC Chairs (Drs. Lisa Calder and Ian Stiell @EMO_Daddy) have been tasked with explaining Epidemiological concepts so that everyone in our department can analyze the literature and appraise articles on their own. For this Blog...

Effect of Provider Experience on Clinician-Performed Ultrasonography for Hydronephrosis in Patients With Suspected Renal Colic

by emottawa | Jul 13, 2015

Journal Club Summary Methodology Score: 3/5 Usefulness Score: 3.5/5 Herbst MK, Rosenberg G, Daniels B, Gross CP, Singh D, Molinaro AM, Luty S, Moore CL. Ann Emerg Med. 2014 Sep;64(3):269-76. Abstract Link This prospective study of ED patients...

Epi Lessons – Part 4 – DECISION RULE ARTICLES

by EMOttawa | Jul 7, 2015

Ondansetron compared with metoclopramide for hyperemesis gravidarum: a randomized controlled trial.

by emottawa | Jul 6, 2015

Journal Club Summary Methodology Score: 3/5 Usefulness Score: 2/5 Abas MN, Tan PC, Azmi N, Omar SZ. Obstet Gynecol. 2014 Jun;123(6):1272-9. Abstract Link This small RCT found that ondansetron was not superior in efficacy to metaclopramide for...

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World-Class Emergency Medicine: To provide outstanding compassionate emergency care through practice-changing research and innovative medical education. For more about our department, visit us at EMOttawa.