Press Releases

November 17, 2022

WestJEM Would Like to Congratulate Our Top Board Members of 2022!

Section Editor of 2022

 Ioannis Koutroulis, MD, MBA, PhD

Decision Editor of 2022

WestJEM: Patrick Joseph Maher, MD, MS

CPC-EM: Gentry Wilkerson, MD

Top Reviewers of 2022

Ryan Misek, DO

Michael Owens DO, MPH, CEM, FAAEM

Top 10 Reviewers of 2022

David Betten, MD

Stephen Lee, PharmD

Aaron Dora-Laskey, MD, MS

Nathaniel Bonafanti, MD

Bryan Lee, MD

Roy Waymack, MD

Kian Preston-Suni, MD

Mariam Fofana, MD, PhD

Blair Woodbury, MD

Scott Leuchten, DO

Recognition for Quality Reviews

Edward Carlin, MD

Gentry Wilkerson, MD

Laurence Dubensky, MD

Gayle Galletta, MD

James Paxton, MD, MBA, FACEP

Sam Kuan, MD

Asit Misra, MD

Daniel Egan, MD

Erik Nordquist, MD, FACEP

Erica Harris, MD


July 27th, 2022

WestJEM Welcomes New Team Members!

WestJEM would like to welcome new and returning team members for the 2022-2023 year.

Editorial

Isabelle Nepomuceno, BS

Executive Editorial Director

Anuki Edirimuni, BS

Editorial Director, WestJEM

Zaynab Ketana, BS

Editorial Director, CPC-EM

Visha Bajaria, BS

Associate Editorial Director, WestJEM/CPC-EM

 

Publishing

Cassandra Saucedo, BS

Executive Publishing Director, WestJEM

Jordan Lam, BS

Publishing Director, WestJEM

Rubina Rafi, BS

Publishing Director, CPC-EM

Anthony Hoang, BS

Associate Publishing Director, WestJEM

Avni Agrawal, BS

Associate Publishing Director, CPC-EM

 

Marketing

Avni Agrawal, BS

Co-Marketing Director

Zaynab Ketana, BS

Co-Marketing Director


May 19, 2022

Congratulations to Dr. Gaddis for his AAEM awards!

The American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) 2022 Awards were announced, and WestJEM would like to congratulate Gary Gaddis, MD, PhD, WestJEM’s Associate Editor, for his TWO awards.

He was designated a Master of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine (MAAEM), the highest designation for service to the specialty and Academy. Recipients are recognized for their career of leadership and service to AAEM, the community and organized medicine, and as exemplary clinicians and teachers. Dr. Gaddis joins only 20 other emergency physicians so recognized in the nation.

In addition, he received the Amin Kazzi International Emergency Medicine Leadership Award for exceptional, longstanding, and profound contribution to international development of emergency medicine (EM) and advancement of EM education worldwide. He joins only 23 other such emergency physicians worldwide.

Dr. Gaddis joined WestJEM as an Associate Editor in 2021, and we are proud to have him contribute.

Congratulations to Dr. Gaddis on this very much deserved recognition!

Dr. Mark I. Langdorf, MD, MHPE

February 8, 2022

WestJEM is very happy to welcome Dr. Gary Gaddis as an Associate Editor!

Dr. Gaddis, MD, PhD

Gary Gaddis, MD, PhD is a new Associate Editor for WestJEM. He has recently transitioned from full-time practice of academic emergency medicine.

Dr. Gaddis comes to WestJEM with impeccable academic credentials. He graduated from the Indiana University School of Medicine in 1986, and the Wright State University School of Medicine residency in Emergency Medicine in 1989. He most recently served as a Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine, and before that, as the St. Luke’s/Missouri Endowed Chair for Emergency Medicine at the St. Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City within the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) School of Medicine.

He will continue an academic presence, chiefly by continuing his service to AAEM, as well as by serving as the Course Director for the American College of Emergency Physicians’ Emergency Medicine Basic Research Skills (EMBRS) course, a “mini-research fellowship”.  He is the Scientific Co-Chair for AAEM’s upcoming 11th Mediterranean Emergency Medicine Congress.

Having co-authored with Dr. Monica Gaddis a series of manuscripts regarding the appropriate use of biostatistics in 1990, he taught at the American College of Emergency Medicine’s “Emergency Medicine Basic Research Skills” or “EMBRS” course, and became the EMBRS Course Director in 2017.

His expertise in biomedical research was applied as one of the original group of Statistics and Methodology reviewers for the Annals of Emergency Medicine and Academic Emergency Medicine, and for five years he served as a Senior Associate Editor for the latter journal, in service to the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.

He has been the Scientific Chair or Co-Chair for numerous international emergency medicine scientific congresses in the Americas and has delivered scientific presentations on four continents.

In 2018, at the International Conference on Emergency Medicine in Mexico City, he became the 25th American to be honored with the Order of the IFEM and election as a Fellow of the International Federation for Emergency Medicine.

Please welcome Dr. Gaddis as an outstanding new team member for WestJEM.


August 25, 2021

WestJEM ranked 14th of 51 Journals in 2020 Clarivate’s (Formerly Thompson Reuters) Expanded Index with Impact Factor of 2.453.

WestJEM ranked 11th of 51 with Impact Factor of 2.788 (5-year Impact Factor).

WestJEM ranked #11 on Google Scholar.


April 12, 2021

WestJEM is very happy to welcome Dr. Dan Mayer as a Decision Editor!

Dan Mayer, MD

Dan Mayer, MD is an Emergency Medicine specialist in Albany, NY who graduated from Yeshiva University College of Medicine in 1973. We are very happy to welcome him to our Editorial Board!


April 3, 2021

WestJEM is very happy to welcome Dr. Patrick Joseph Maher as a Decision Editor!

Patrick Joseph Maher, MD, MS

Patrick Joseph Maher, MD, MS is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He graduated from Georgetown University School of Medicine in 2010 and completed an Emergency Medicine residency at the University of Washington in 2015. Dr. Maher then completed a Critical Care Medicine fellowship at the University of Washington in 2017. Upon joining the faculty at Mount Sinai in 2017, Dr. Maher completed additional research and received an MS in Biostatistics from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. He currently practices Emergency Medicine and Critical Care Medicine and his research interests include coagulation testing and resuscitation from hemorrhagic shock. He has been supported with grant funding from NIH/NHLBI and has contributed to several peer reviewed publications in addition to authoring multiple textbook chapters.


December 23, 2020

WestJEM is very happy to welcome Dr. Elizabeth Burner as a Decision Editor!

 Elizabeth Burner, MD, MPH

Elizabeth Burner, MD, MPH, MSci, is an Associate Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California.  In 2013, Dr. Burner joined the faculty at the Keck School and has worked clinically in the emergency department at the LAC+USC hospital, the Jail Urgent Care based in the LA County Twin Towers Correctional Facility and several community hospitals in the Los Angeles area. Dr. Burner’s research interests center on investigating emergent health communication tools to reach health disparity groups, and directing patients to chronic care and medical homes as appropriate.  She is committed to engaging patients in healthier lifestyles.  She conducts mixed methods research to better understand the viewpoints of marginalized populations, particularly urban Latino immigrants. Her work has been supported by several NIH, institutional and local grants. Dr. Burner also teaches clinical and translational research methodology with the SC CTSI.


December 18, 2020

WestJEM is very happy to welcome Dr. Taylor Burkholder to our team of Section Editors!

 Taylor Burkholder, MD, MPH

Dr. Burkholder will join our expert team of Internal Medicine Section Editors!


October 26, 2020

WestJEM Would Like to Congratulate Our Top Board Members of 2019-2020!

Section Editor of 2019-2020

Dan Mayer, MD

Decision Editor of 2019-2020

Susan Wilcox, MD

Top Reviewers of 2019-2020

Caleb Canders, MD

Patrick Meloy, MD

Distinguished Reviewers of 2019-2020

Brad Bobrin, MD

Joshua Bucher, MD

Aaron Dora-Laskey, MD

Robert Ehrman, MD

Joseph Flynn, DO

Kara Geren, MD

Annahieta Kalantari, DO

Ryan Misek, DO

Maria Moreira, MD

Michael Owens, MD

Christine Stehman, MD

Paul Stromberg, MD

Quincy Tran, MD

James Waymack, MD

James Paxton, MD

Jonathan Weyand, MD

Paul Weygandt, MD


July 13th, 2020

WestJEM Welcomes New Team Members!

WestJEM would like to welcome new and returning team members for the 2020-2021 year.

Editorial

Leila Danishgar, BS

Executive Editorial Director

Maria Nguyen, BS

Editorial Director, WestJEM

Nicholas Gossett, BS

Associate Editorial Director, CPC-EM

 

Publishing

Christine Louis, BS

Publishing Director, WestJEM

Cassandra Saucedo, BS

Publishing Director, CPC-EM

Isabelle Nepomuceno, BS

Associate Publishing Director

Ishan Shah, BS

Associate Publishing Director

 

Marketing

Isabelle Nepomuceno, BS

Associate Media and Communications Director

Ishan Shah, BS

Associate Media and Communications Director

Nicholas Gossett, BS

Associate Media and Communications Director


June 12th, 2020

WestJEM Articles by Richmond et al. & Takeuchi et al., Featured in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: ER doctors: We’re no strangers to violence but we try to de-escalate without anyone dying

As emergency medicine physicians of color, we are yelled at and called profane names. We have been spat on, pushed and kicked. One patient has landed a staff member in the ICU. A patient recently had a knife in his pocket. We have routinely experienced psychological and physical trauma. But we choose nonviolent de-escalation strategies — not just because they work but because they are humane.

We are disappointed at the inconsistent use of de-escalation strategies revealed by emerging footage of black men and women interacting with law enforcement. This lack of respect for humanity has led to the loss of countless lives of black men and women. We are distressed by the continued use of force despite literature supporting nonviolent de-escalation.

WestJEM Articles Featured:

“Verbal De-escalation of the Agitated Patient: Consensus Statement of the American Association for Emergency Psychiatry Project BETA De-escalation Workgroup” by Richmond et al.

“Excited Delirium” by Takeuchi et al.


June 2nd, 2020

WestJEM Article by Stopyra et al., Featured in USA Today: Protesters should know how to protect themselves from tear gas, pepper spray

People who attend protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death should know how to protect themselves from tear gas and pepper spray.

As crowds gather across the country to protest the death of George Floyd, authorities meet them with tear gas and pepper spray in attempt to prevent more violence.

While some protests have ended peacefully, others in cities like Pittsburgh, Minneapolis and St. Louis have been confronted with a line of police in riot gear firing tear gas and projectiles into crowds protesting the death of Floyd, an unarmed black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis.


June 1st, 2020

WestJEM Article by Takeuchi et al., Featured in The News Tribune: Man who died during Tacoma arrest was heading for snack after church, friends say

Manuel Ellis centered his life around church.

The 33-year-old was an addict who found salvation in God and desperately wanted to share that with loved ones. He’d recently been diagnosed with mental health issues but was striving for a brighter future, preferably one where he could do landscaping.

On Tuesday, the night he died, Ellis played drums at Last Day Ministries and was so moved he called his brother, sister and mother individually to share the joy.

 


May 3rd, 2020

WestJEM Article by Stehman et al., from Indiana University, Featured in USA Today

There’s the COVID unit nurse whose sister got infected and became a patient. The staffer who works 12-hour shifts, only to come home to unruly and frustrated children. The nurse who felt the added pressure of supporting an unemployed brother.

Dr. Jay Kaplan listens as staffers share their fears and problems. He tells them it’s OK to get sad or angry over the coronavirus that has sickened so many and upended their lives. He reads them his poems. He shares how, early in the outbreak, he came home and cried to his wife, overwhelmed by the deluge of dying patients.

Mostly, Kaplan, 71, an emergency room physician and wellness specialist at LCMC Health system in New Orleans, wants them to know they’re not alone.


April 10th, 2020

WestJEM Article by Eckhardt et al., from Linköping University, Featured in Health Affairs

On October 3, 2019, the streets of Quito, Ecuador’s Andean capital city, filled with thousands of protestors. Students, teachers, indigenous group leaders, transportation workers, labor unions, and many more marched for 11 days, blocking main highways across the country and seizing control of three main oil fields in Ecuador. The protests began in response to President Lenin Moreno’s removal of a fuel subsidy as part of an austerity plan with the International Monetary Fund to stabilize the Ecuadorian economy. President Moreno declared a 60-day state of emergency, dispatched the military, and moved the seat of the government to the coastal city of Guayaquil. Both sides of the protests committed atrocities, leaving 1,300 people injured, 1,200 arrested, and eight dead. The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, or CONAIE, Ecuador’s largest organization of indigenous groups, played a vocal role in motivating indigenous groups across the country to protest.


April 6th, 2020

WestJEM Article by Self-Brown et al., from Georgia State University, Featured in PBS News

Over the course of five consecutive days last month, Dr. Jamye Coffman saw seven children and infants who had been abused so severely that they required hospitalization at Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas. At the time, the city, along with the rest of Texas, had recently declared an emergency over the rapid spread of novel coronavirus. Typically, the hospital sees fewer than 10 cases of fatal child abuse in a year, but that week, two died from their injuries.


April 4th, 2020

WestJEM Article by Langabeer et al., from University of Texas Health Center, Featured in Tech Crunch

The COVID-19 pandemic rages on.

As cases in the United States skyrocket, one of the most foreboding possibilities of COVID-19’s rapid growth is the potential to overwhelm hospital capacity. Hospitals in cities like New York are already underwater, relying on hospital boats (“70,000 ton message[s] of hope and solidarity”) to keep them afloat, and on retired providers as well as prematurely graduated medical students to staff those beds.

In tandem, telehealth has rapidly evolved from a “nice to have” to a “need to have” for U.S. health systems.


March 16th, 2020

WestJEM to Fast Track Publication of Selected COVID-19 Related Manuscripts

Dear WestJEM and CPC-EM Community,

The Western Journal of Emergency Medicine: integrating Emergency Care with Population Health (WestJEM.org) and Clinical Practice and Cases in Emergency Medicine (CPC-EM.org) will provide fast-track publication of selected COVID-19 related manuscripts, case reports, and images. Having fully open access, reliable information on emergency medicine-related topics during this global pandemic is of paramount importance.

Click here to view the expert opinion piece by Dr. Robert Katzer published March 15 in Articles in Press: “Keeping the Fire House Running: A Proposed Approach to Mitigate Spread of COVID-19 Among Public Safety Personnel.”

We will do everything we can, and as long as feasible thought these challenging times, to expedite this process, to peer review, and post selected manuscripts in less than one week. To determine whether your manuscript qualifies, please email Editor@WestJEM.org and Editor@CPCEM.org.


March 16th, 2020

WestJEM Updates Regarding Coronavirus (COVID-19)

On March 16, 2020 the President issued new guidelines for Americans to follow to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), including avoiding social gatherings of 10 or more.

  1. As emergency physicians, we strongly support these guidelines and urge the public to practice social distancing. Emergency physicians are on the frontlines, with personal protective equipment supplies running low, and many emergency physicians in self-quarantine or -isolation due to COVID-19 exposure or illness.  Currently, two emergency physicians are hospitalized in critical condition.  We simply cannot lose more physicians to this virus if we are to continue to provide healthcare to the public.
  2. Social distancing strategy (> 6 feet) slows the spread of the virus through the population from weeks to months, by physically distancing ourselves from potentially and actually infected patients. Infected patients may have no symptoms, but their droplets of saliva and mucus from coughs and sneezes are infectious. Slowing the spread of the virus allows physicians and hospitals to cope with a lesser surge of mildly- and critically-ill patients, spreading out the need for ventilators and intensive care unit beds over more time, so more lives can be saved.
  1. We will continue to work and provide for our patients, but we need Americans to stop congregating. Lining up for restaurants and bars, gathering on beaches for spring break and venturing out shopping will only further spread COVID-19.  Most Americans would never walk past a burning building without providing help, yet some communities are doing the equivalent of adding gasoline to an inferno.
  1. If you feel ill and have not had contact with someone who is at risk for COVID-19, in all likelihood, you will not be tested, but sent home with self-care advice. At this time, there is no treatment for coronavirus.  Going to the ED if you are moderately ill will only expose others, many of whom are at increased risk of complications and death.
  1. We call upon parents to bring and keep their children home. Celebrate at home in small groups, if at all. Protect the elderly (< 65 years old) and immunocompromised, as they are at far higher risk of serious illness and death; avoid direct contact with children entirely. If you do not need to leave, please stay home.

This is no longer about “doing what you want.” This is about the safety of OUR NATION.


March 3rd, 2020

WestJEM Saves Authors’ Time for Resubmissions

Resubmitting a paper for consideration to another journal takes several hours, and normally requires reformatting to conform to the exacting standards of the new journal. At WestJEM, we believe this is a waste of time.

To remedy this, WestJEM will no longer require reformatting as a condition for resubmission, if the paper has been declined after full peer review from another leading EM journal. We will accept the usual formats from other EM journals (Annals of EM, Academic EM, American Journal of EM, Journal of EM) and subspecialty journals (Pediatric EM, Prehospital and Disaster Medicine) for example. We do ask you to include the same sections of our paper requirements (i.e. Original Research papers must have an abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, limitations, conclusion, and references). The minor WestJEM formatting requirements (i.e. spacing, format of references, etc) can be deferred until after the paper has passed through initial WestJEM peer-review, and is being seriously considered for publication. If there was prior peer-review, we strongly encourage you to respond to this critique, and submit an improved version of the paper to WestJEM.

We are proud to serve as innovators in EM publication, emphasizing collaboration in scholarly publishing. We look forward to reading your work.


March 1st, 2020

WestJEM Article by Meltzer et al., from George Washington University, Featured in Physician Weekly 

Some researchers have theorized that depression and anxiety can be attributed to many cases of non-specific abdominal pain, but few analyses have explored this association in greater detail. To address this issue, Dr. Meltzer and colleagues had a study published in the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine. The study sought to determine if repeat ED use among patients with non-specific abdominal pain might be associated with a diagnosis of moderate to severe depressive disorder. Identifying patients who may clinically benefit from targeted psychiatric screening may help improve their quality of life and enable clinicians to use diagnostic tests more efficiently.


February 28th, 2020

WestJEM Article by Nordt et al., from University of Southern California, Featured in Business Insider

Current standard practice in the treatment of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) by emergency medicine physicians, internists, and cardiologists, as well as prehospital personnel, includes the rapid administration of aspirin. This is based upon its known antiplatelet effects to decrease clot formation and propagation. The second International Study of Infarct Survival demonstrated a reduction in mortality of 23% when aspirin was administered in acute myocardial infarction. These investigators recommended that the first dose of enteric-coated aspirin be either crushed, chewed, or sucked to increase absorption. In clinical practice, patients with suspected ACS are either given chewable aspirin or an intact aspirin tablet to be chewed or swallowed whole. Both the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology recommend that aspirin tablets be chewed to increase absorption. While this is intuitive, there are scant data supporting this recommendation.


January 6th, 2020

WestJEM Article by Takeuchi et al., from UC San Diego, Featured in NBC Channel 12 Release

A man’s death has been ruled an accident after he died while in the custody of the Phoenix Police Department in October. The Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office released the report of 49-year-old Alexander Brown Jr.’s Oct. 6. death on Friday. In it, the medical examiner’s office determined that Brown’s manner of death was an accident and that his cause of death was “excited delirium syndrome.” The Review paper titled “Excited Delirium” by Takeuchi, MD, et al., was cited to explain the syndrome responsible for the cause of death.


November 21st, 2019

WestJEM is very happy to welcome Dr. Margaret Samuels-Kalow to our Editorial Board!

Margaret Samuels-Kalow, MD

Dr. Samuels-Kalow is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital (Harvard Medical School). She completed her residency training at the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency in 2012 and her fellowship in pediatric emergency medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in 2015. Her current research focuses on developing interventions to improve disparities measurement, and develop interventions to reduce disparities in emergency care, particularly for patients with limited health literacy and limited English proficiency. She also serves as the co-chair of the Social Emergency Medicine Interest Group at SAEM. Dr. Sameuls-Kalow will be contributing her expertise as a Decision Editor.


November 21st, 2019

WestJEM is very happy to welcome Dr. Brian J. Yun and Dr. Tehreem Rehman to our team of Section Editors!

Brian J. Yun, MD

Tehreem Rehman, MD

Dr. Yun will be supplying his expertise in ER Administration and Dr. Rehman will join our expert team of AAEM/RSA Section Editors!


November 18th, 2019

WestJEM would like to congratulate the winners of the ACOEP/FOEM Research Paper Competition!

First Place

Necessity of Routine Laboratory Studies in Medical Clearance

Scott Howard, DO. Metro Health University of Michigan.

Second Place (Two Way Tie)

Impact of Bed Angle and Height on Intubation Success During Simulated Endotracheal Intubation in the Ramped Position

Ryan Beaumont, DO. Saint Vincent Hospital.

Procedural Experience with Intubation: Results from a National Emergency

Adam Christensen, DO. Saint Vincent Hospital.


November 4th, 2019

WestJEM would like to congratulate our top Board Members of 2018-2019!

Editorial Board Member of 2018-2019

Amin Kazzi, MD

Associate Editor of 2018-2019

Michael Gottlieb, MD

Top Section Editors of 2018-2019

David Lee, MD
Josh Ashurst, DO
Tony Zitek, MD

Distinguished Section Editors of 2018-2019

Gary Johnson, MD
Marc Matel, MD
Joshua Gaither, MD
Matthew Fields, MD
Nikhil Goyal, MD
David Thompson, MD

Top Reviewers of 2018-2019

Ryan Misek, DO
Darien Cohen, MD

Distinguished Reviewers of 2018-2019

Stanley Wu, MD
James Waymack, MD
Patrick Meloy, MD
Matthew Jordan, MD
Jean Hoffman, MD
Caleb P. Canders, MD
Roya Caloia, DO
Joshua Bucher, MD
Dina Wallin, MD
Eric J. Cortez, MD
Michael Burla, DO
David I. Bruner, MD
Joyce Arpilleda, MD

Certificate of Appreciation

Alissa Fiorentino, BA

October 16th, 2019

WestJEM would like to congratulate Dr. Mark Langdorf for participating in International Open Access Week in conjunction with UCI Library!

“Open Access is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles combined with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment. Open Access is the needed modern update for the communication of research that fully utilizes the Internet for what is was originally built to do – accelerate research.” (SPARC)

Established by SPARC and partners in the student community in 2008, International Open Access Week is an opportunity to take action in making openness the default for research—to raise the visibility of scholarship, accelerate research, and turn breakthroughs into better lives.

For more information about International Open Access Week, please visit www.openaccessweek.org. The official twitter hashtag for the week is #OAWeek, and we encourage those having discussions around this year’s theme in the leadup to the week to use the hashtag #OpenForWhom.


September 24th, 2019

WestJEM is proud to partner with AAEM to publish 24 of the best research abstracts related to Emergency Care and Population Health from MEMC 2019

1. Ultrasound for the Diagnosis of Diverticulitis: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

2. Association of response time interval and good neurological outcome according to bystander CPR

3. Comparison of effect of Audio and Video-instructed Dispatcher-assisted CPR on Outcomes after OHC

4. Changes in Opioid Prescribing Patters in Two Urban Emergency Departments from 2011-2016

5. Nationwide Potential For Uncontrolled Donations Post-Cardiac Death In The Modern Resuscitation Era

6. Intern Self-Reported Preparedness for Residency: An ACGME Milestone Based Study

7. A Study on the Korea Triage and Acuity Scale using NEDIS analysis

8. Multi-institutional Implementation of the National Clinical Assessment Tool in Emergency Medicine

9. Public Health In Acute Care Settings: Acute HIV in 6 Urban Emergency Departments

10. Predicting Admission At Triage: Comparison Of START And GAPS

11. Implementing a Social Media Based Curriculum for Newly Matched Interns

12. Which Wellness Activities Correlate with Lower Resident Physician Burnout

13. Impact of Endotracheal Tube Twisting on Accuracy of Ultrasound for Intubation Confirmation

14. Impact of Universal Non-Targeted Hepatitis C Screening in an Urban Emergency Department

15. Impact Of Trauma Levels On Survival Of Patients Arriving With No Signs Of Life To US Trauma Centers

16. Safety And Efficacy Of Prehospital Paramedic Administration Of Ketamine In Adult Civilian Population

17. Prognostic Factors Of Poor Outcome In Geriatric Traumatology Patients In The Emergency Department

18. Can Pre-Hospital Personnel Accurately Triage Patients for Large Vessel Occlusion Strokes?

19. Comprehensive Approach To Sustainable Reduction In Emergency Department Opioid Prescribing

20. Telephone Follow-Up After Pediatric ED Discharge – Does It Impact the Likelihood of Return Visits?

21. The Impact of a Liaison Program on Patient Satisfaction in the Emergency Department

22. Expectations of an Emergency Department Patient Population During an Active Assailant Event

23. Burnout in Resident Physicians: Correlation with Mistreatment and Workplace Violence

24. Emergency Department Utilization for Transgender Patients Following Gender Affirmation Surgery


September 16th, 2019

Lethal Weapon? You Might Be Surprised.

Discover the story from our latest Case Report featured in CPC-EM!

When University of Kentucky medical student Benjamin Mogni teamed up with a forensic pathologist to investigate the cause of death of a 31-year-old man who had been found lying unconscious on a sidewalk, what they learned was eye-opening.

The man had been brought to the ER where doctors found a small wound on his chest that didn’t look like much. But the victim died, and the coroner ordered an autopsy.

The seemingly minor external wound told a far different story as Dr. Susan Maines of the Office of the State Medical Examiner in Frankfort tracked the pathway of a projectile through the victim’s breastbone. It had pierced the pericardium, a fluid-filled sac that contains the heart, and penetrated the heart and blood vessels in the lung.

Dr. Maines determined that it was a homicide and the cause of death was a gunshot wound of the chest. But the projectile wasn’t a bullet. It was a mushroom-shaped, 4.5-mm pellet fired from an air rifle.

Air rifles were briefly used as weapons of war during the Napoleonic era when a soldier could fire 20 rounds in the time it took for him to reload a musket. But early air weapons were so fragile they did not survive the rigors of the battlefield. Today the air rifle is a powerful, high-velocity weapon, some of which are capable of firing up to 1300-1400 feet per second, a velocity surpassing that of several low-power handguns, including one 9-mm.

Physicians are familiar with the damage an air rifle can cause to the eyes. Rarely, however, has an air weapon been used as a murder weapon. Only three prior cases have been reported in the medical literature.

The small size of the external wound is often misleading, as was the case in the death that Mogni and Dr. Maines reported. Because the wound is small it may lead physicians to underestimate the potential for lethal injury. Mogni urges physicians to counsel patients on the dangers that an air rifle can present.

Read the full case report here!


July 8th, 2019

WestJEM is very happy to welcome Dr. Whitney Johnson, Dr. Cristina Zeretzke-Bien, Dr. Erik Anderson, and Dr. Dan Mayer to our team of Section Editors!

Dr. Whitney Johnson

Cristina Zeretzke-Bien

Dr. Cristina Zeretzke-Bien

Dr. Erik Anderson

Dr. Dan Mayer

Dr. Johnson will be contributing her expertise as an AAEM/RSA Section Editor, Dr. Zeretzke-Bien will be supplying her expertise in Pediatrics, Dr. Anderson will join our expert team of Public Health Section Editors, and Dr. Mayer will be one of our experts in Statistics and Methodology!


June 12th, 2019

Western Journal of Emergency Medicine’s (WestJEM) Journal Rank and Impact Factor Advance Substantially!

We are proud to share the latest news on our journal’s ranking for 2018.

Published by the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of California, Irvine, WestJEM is one of a few fully open-access EM journals, and now ranks 12/84 worldwide (86th percentile), per the newly released SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) index for 2018. This represents a notable jump from a rank of 16/78 titles in 2017.

The 2018 Scopus CiteScore also ranks WestJEM at 11/77 EM journals worldwide, up from 16/78 in 2017.

Impact Factors from the two sources improved to 1.75 for two-year, and 1.65 for three-year metrics. These are increases of 33% for Citescore and 11% for Scimago over 2017.

These place WestJEM as the 4th or 5th ranked general EM journal in the world, and 2nd or 3rd among Open Access EM journals.

WestJEM focuses on the integration of population health with emergency care. The journal is indexed in all major medical databases including MEDLINE and PubMed and a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association. WestJEM’s companion journal, CPC-EM, has also grown with its indexing through PubMed and PubMed Central.

Our authors, section editors, editorial board, and sponsors are all critical elements to the journals’ success. We sincerely thank the entire WestJEM community for its continued support.


June 1st, 2019

WestJEM welcomes new team members!

WestJEM would like to welcome new team members for the 2019-2020 year.

Editorial

Leila Danishgar, BS
 Editorial Director
Maria Nguyen, BS
Assistant Editorial Director, WestJEM
Joseph Bui, BS
Assistant Editorial Director, CPC-EM

Publishing

Dana Le, BS
Publishing Director, WestJEM
Cassandra Saucedo, BS
Publishing Director, CPC-EM
Christine Louis, BS
Associate Publishing Director, WestJEM
Argineh Shahbandari, BS
Associate Publishing Director, CPC-EM

Marketing

Tushank Chadha, BS
Media and Communications Director

May 14th, 2019

WestJEM publishes new AAEM Pediatric BETA Guidelines for Management of Agitation in the Pediatric Emergency Department

In follow up to the important BETA Guidelines for Management of Agitation in the ED, the AAEM has convened a workgroup to develop expert consensus guidelines for psychopharmacologic and non-psychopharmacologic management of agitation in children and adolescents in the ED. This is the first published evidence-based expert consensus guidelines on this important topic. The authors recommend a multimodal approach targeted to the etiology of the agitation, which can range from pain or delirium to anxiety, autism and other psychiatric causes. Given that 6-10% of youth presenting to the ED for psychiatric care become acutely agitated and require restraint, these guidelines provide important tools for ED clinicians to better manage agitation and avoid restraint and injury.

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May 7th, 2019

WestJEM is very happy to welcome Dr. Donna Mendez and Dr. Soheil Sadaat to our team of Section Editors!

Dr. Donna Mendez

Dr. Soheil Sadaat

Dr. Mendez will be contributing her expertise to Pediatric Emergency Medicine and Dr. Sadaat will be supplying his expertise in Statistics and Methodology!

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March 26th, 2019

WestJEM is very happy to welcome Dr. Andrew Phillips to our team of Associate Editors!

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Dr. Phillips is a former junior high teacher turned emergency physician and intensivist. He graduated medical school from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, and went on to do both an emergency medicine residency at the Stanford University/Kaiser EM program and an anesthesia critical care fellowship at Stanford University. His research focusses on health professions education, especially survey methods quality improvement. He is also the editor-in-chief and founder of EM Coach, an artificial intelligence-driven emergency medicine written board review program. Dr. Phillips is a clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine and works in both the ED and cardiothoracic intensive care unit at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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March 25th, 2019

WestJEM is very happy to welcome Dr. Erin Dehon to our team of Section Editors!

Dr. Dehon is a native of New Orleans, LA. After losing her family home to Hurricane Katrina, she relocated to Jackson, MS and pursued a PhD in clinical psychology. She received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Jackson State University and went on to complete a psychology residency at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and a fellowship in HIV and Hepatitis C at the VA Medical Center in Jackson, MS. She has specific training and expertise in evidence-based treatments for mental health conditions, behavioral and psychological assessments, and quantitative and qualitative research using social-psychological variables. Her research and professional interests include adjustment to chronic illness, adherence to medical treatment regimens, primary and secondary prevention of chronic illnesses, and faculty development.

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March 22nd, 2019

WestJEM would like to congratulate the winners of the AAEM/RSA WestJEM Population Health Research Competition!

Winner: Use of the updated Google Translate algorithm for Spanish and Chinese discharge instructions 

Dr. Cortlyn Brown, MD. University of California San Francisco General Hospital.

Acknowledgments: Elaine Khoong EC, MD, MS. Eric Steinbrook. Alicia Fernandez, MD. Christopher Fee, MD.

Runner-up: The Impact of a Standardized Checklist on the Quality and Duration of ED Physician Sign-Out

Dr. Anna Yang, MD. St. Luke’s University Health Network.

Co-authors: Brandon Healy BS. Holly Stankewicz DO. Jill Stoltzfus Ph.D. Philip Salen MD.

Runner-up: Assessing Linkage to Care of an Emergency Department Hepatitis C Screening Program

Austin T. Jones. Tulane University School of Medicine.

Acknowledgments: Lisa Moreno-Walton, MD, MS. Kanayo R. Okeke-Eweni, MBBS, MPH. Jenna Miller, BS. Patricia Kissinger, PhD, MPH. Tonette Krousel-Wood, MD, MSPH. Keanan McGonigle, MPP.

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February 11th, 2019

WestJEM is proud to sponsor the 2019 AAEM/RSA WestJEM Population Health Research Competition!

Come see the AAEM/RSA WestJEM Population Health Research Competition at the Caesars Palace in Las Vegas! Showcasing medical student and resident research that affect the health of patients in and around the ED!

Information about the Scientific Assembly can be found at https://www.aaem.org/aaem19/

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February 1st, 2019

WestJEM is proud to announce our newest categories:

Social Emergency Medicine

Systematic Reviews 

For more information regarding Social Emergency Medicine, click here.

For more information regarding Systematic Reviews, click here.

Submit your paper today!

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November 19th, 2018

Western Journal of Emergency Medicine (WestJEM) would like to congratulate Dr. Mark Langdorf for receiving the 2018 California ACEP Chapter Media award. 

Mark I. Langdorf, MD, MHPE, FACEP, FAAEM, RDMS is Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine at the University of California, Irvine. After medical school at UC San Diego, he did an EM residency, a fellowship in medical education and the Master degree in Health Professions Education at the University of Illinois, Chicago. He served as Program Director for the emergency medicine residency for 10 years, Medical Director of the Level I Trauma Center Emergency Department for 18 years, and Division Chief and then Department Chair for 20 years. He served as Associate Dean for Faculty Development and CME, and Director of the Academy for Innovation in Medical Education at UC Irvine. He also served as Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education.
He consults and speaks nationally and internationally to promote optimum trauma, stroke, and emergency care. He is Regional Faculty for the Advanced Cardiac Life Support Course and also teaches Advanced Trauma Life Support. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine (WestJEM), an open-access peer review international journal, at www.westjem.com. He is the recipient of the Peter Rosen (renamed the Robert McNamara) Award for Academic Leadership from the American Academy of Emergency Medicine. He also serves as Vice President of the Medical Staff at UC Irvine Medical Center.

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October 1st, 2018

Top Editorial Board Member of 2018

Edward Michelson, MD
Texas Tech University Health Sciences 
Associate Editor

Top Section Editors of 2017-2018

Andrew W. Phillips, MD, MEd
Stanford/Kaiser Emergency Medicine
Education Section Editor
Christopher “Kit” Tainter, MD
University of California, San Diego
Critical Care Section Editor

Distinguished Section Editors of 2017-2018

John Ashurst, DO, MSc
Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center
Public Health Section Editor
Joshua B. Gaither, MD
University of Arizona, Tucson 
Emergency Medical Services Section Editor
David Lee, MD
Hofstra University Northwell Health
ED Administration Section Editor
Marc L. Martel, MD
Hennepin County Medical Center 
Behavioral Emergencies Section Editor
Christopher Mills, MD
Inova Fair Oaks Hospital
International Medicine Section Editor
Shane Summers, MD
Brooke Army Medical Center
Ultrasound Section Editor

Top Reviewers of 2017-2018

Michael J. Burla, DO
Beaumont Hospital
Austin Smith, MD
Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Distinguished Reviewers of 2017-2018

Justin Arnold, DO, MPH
Joshua Bucher, MD
Caleb P. Canders, MD
Darien D. Cohen, MD
Aaron Dora-Laskey, MD, MS
Abra Fant, MD, MS
Felix Huang, MD
Matthew Jordan, MD
Joshua W. Joseph, MD
Charles Lei, MD
Patrick J. Maher, MD
Patrick Meloy, MD
Sean S. Michael, MD, MBA
Adria E. Ottoboni, MD
Michael D. Owens, DO, MPH
Lane Smith, MD, PhD
Charles Stewart, MD
Dina Wallin, MD
James R. Waymack, MD
Stanley Wu, MD, MBA

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July 1st, 2018

WestJEM welcomes new team members

WestJEM would like to welcome new team members for the 2018-2019 year.

Jimmy To, BS
Editorial Director
Leila Danishgar, BS
Associate Editorial Director
Dana Le, BS
Publishing Director
Shashank Somasundaram, BS
Associate Publishing Director
Cassandra Saucedo, BS
Associate Publishing Director
Tushank Chadha, BS
Marketing Director

 


June 11th, 2018

Western Journal of Emergency Medicine’s (WestJEM) 2017 SJR and Scopus Citescore rankings achieve notable growth!

The Western Journal of Emergency Medicine: Integrating Emergency Care with Population Health (WestJEM), published by the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of California Irvine, is one of the few fully open-access emergency medicine journals, and now ranks 16 worldwide of 78 EM journals, per the newly released SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) statistics for 2017. This represents a notable jump from WestJEM’s 2016 SJR ranking of 25 out of 80 EM journals. The SJR website provides an overview of how WestJEM compares with its EM peers.

The 2017 Scopus CiteSource rankings list WestJEM at 20 of 77 EM journals. WestJEM also received a journal h-index of 21 in SJR. At the Scopus website additional information on the h-index, as well as graphs documenting WestJEM’s development, can be found.

WestJEM continues its 10-year history of growth with the dedicated work of editor in chief, Mark Langdorf, Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine at UC Irvine, and its editorial board. The journal is extending its scope and reach throughout the United States and the world. Its founders recognize that the journal could not have achieved this degree of scholarly influence without the constant support of its authors, section editors, editorial board, and three major sponsors: the California ACEP, the American College of Osteopathic Emergency Physicians, and the California Chapter Division of AAEM.

As its subtitle indicates, WestJEM focuses on the integration of population health with emergency care. The journal is indexed in all major medical databases including MEDLINE and PubMed and a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association.

WestJEM’s companion journal, Clinical Practice and Cases in Emergency Medicine (CPC-EM), has just been indexed in PubMed and PubMed Central. Its inaugural issue was published in January 2017.

You may view the journal’s 1,572 abstracts on the PubMed website here. To submit a new article, visit our website at www.WestJEM.org.

 


June 8th, 2018

Clinical Practice and Cases in Emergency Medicine (CPC-EM) has achieved Inclusion in Pubmed and Pubmed Central! 

Clinical Practice and Cases in Emergency Medicine (CPC-EM), published by the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of California Irvine, has achieved the milestone of inclusion and indexing in PubMed and full-text inclusion in PubMed Central (PMC) beginning with its first issue published March 2017. CPC-EM is an internationally recognized fully open access journal affiliated with the MEDLINE-indexed Western Journal of Emergency Medicine: Integrating Emergency Care with Population Health .

CPC-EM, offers a wide range of patient care case reports, images in the field of emergency medicine (EM), state-of-the-art clinicopathological cases and insightful medical legal case reports. Its editor in chief is Rick McPheeters, DO, chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Kern Medical and an associate clinical professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

CPC-EM’s founding principle is free dissemination of research and best practices to the world. It encourages submissions from junior authors, established faculty, and residents of established and developing EM programs throughout the world. CPC-EM has published more than 192 papers to date in quarterly issues.

We would like to sincerely thank our authors, section editors, editorial board, our sponsors: California ACEP, American College of Osteopathic Emergency Physicians, and the California Chapter Division of AAEM who have supported and contributed to CPC-EM.

You may view the journal index on PubMed website here. To submit a new article, visit our website at www.CPCEM.org.


May 29th, 2018

Dr. Amin Kazzi is awarded the prestigious Robert McNamara Award by the American Academy of Emergency Medicine

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Dr. Amin Kazzi was awarded the Robert McNamara Award by the American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM). The award was presented at the AAEM Scientific Assembly in San Diego in April, 2018.

This award recognizes an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to AAEM in the area of academic leadership. Nominees for this award needed to have 10 or more years of experience in an EM academic leadership position. Dr. Kazzi, Professor of Emergency Medicine at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, was a founding co-editor of California Journal of Emergency Medicine (CalJEM) in 2000, which eventually became the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine (WestJEM) in 2008. Dr. Kazzi created the journal with Dr. Robert Derlet and transformed it from a 4-page initial newsletter to a respectable regional academic journal from the Western United States. In 2007, the journal was expanded and rebranded as WestJEM, to focuses on how emergency care affects health and health disparities in communities and populations, and how social conditions impact the composition of patients seeking care in emergency departments worldwide.

Dr. Kazzi is recognized for founding in 2001, with two European colleagues, the premier international multinational Mediterranean Emergency Medicine Congress (MEMC). As executive chair, he planned & executed in partnership with other key leaders six out of the eight Mediterranean EM Congresses, most recently in September 2017 in Lisbon, Portugal.

 


May 21st, 2018

WestJEM Article by Zeller et al., from Alameda Health, Featured in Washington Post

Psychiatric boarding — when patients in need of psychiatric treatment wait for prolonged periods in emergency departments due to shortages in mental-health resources, particularly inpatient beds — has become a catastrophe for the U.S. health-care system. The Original Research paper titled “Effects of a Dedicated Regional Psychiatric Emergency Service on Boarding of Psychiatric Patients in Area Emergency Departments” by Zeller, MD, et al., was cited to explain that patients transferred to a regional psychiatric emergency service waited for less than two hours, on average, compared with the state average of more than 10 hours for patients in general emergency departments; further, the majority of transferred patients were eventually discharged home without need for hospitalization, suggesting that specialized psychiatric emergency departments can help triage which patients need higher levels of care.


April 9th, 2018

WestJEM is proud to have sponsored the AAEM/RSA WestJEM Population Health Research Competition

The competition showcased medical student and resident research specifically in areas that affect the health of populations of patients in and around the ED. This competition is one of the ways in which WestJEM actively supports scholarly publishing from junior faculty by devoting additional space, consideration and editorial support.
Of the outstanding submissions, the top six abstracts were selected for oral presentation and judging at AAEM18, after which the top three were awarded with one first place winner and two runners-up. A special thank you to our judges, Dr. Rick McPheeters, Dr. Jessica Fujimoto, and Dr. Puja Gopal.
Congratulations to the three top abstract presenters, their mentors and research collaborators!
First Place:
“Evidence for Social Disparities in ED Hallway Bed Assignment”
David A. Kim, MD PhD
Stanford Medicine
Two Runner Ups (Listed in Alphabetical Order):
“Opt-out Emergency Department Screening of HIV and HCV in a Large Urban Academic Center”
Emily M. Ball, MD MPH
Jackson Memorial Hospital
“The Impact of the Affordable Care Act on Primary Care Treatability of Emergency Department Visits”
Luther Walls
Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine

 


 April 5th, 2018

WestJEM Article by Ferguson et al., from Washington University School of Medicine, featured in R.E.B.E.L EM

This is the first published study to date assessing the linkage between slide design and CME speaker evaluations by an audience of practicing clinicians. The incorporation of images was associated with higher evaluation scores, in alignment with Mayer’s theory of multimedia learning. R.E.B.E.L EM featured this article to discuss the association of lecture slide design and speaker evaluations.


January 1st, 2018

WestJEM is very proud to be celebrating our 10 year anniversary

The Western Journal of Emergency Medicine: Integrating Emergency Care with Population Health (WestJEM) is very proud to be celebrating 10 years as the premier open-access Medline-indexed EM journal in the world. WestJEM focuses on how social conditions impact the composition of patients seeking care in emergency departments worldwide. WestJEM publishes six full-text open access online issues per year with 23,000+ distribution. We have had over 8.2 million downloads in the past 10 years, and now average more than 150,000 per month. WestJEM actively supports scholarly publishing from junior faculty by devoting additional space, consideration and editorial support. Our partner Journal, Clinical Practice and Cases in Emergency Medicine was created to encourage publications by junior faculty, fellows, and residents. We are also very proud of our educational collaborations on the CDEM/CORD Education Research and Practice yearly issues, CORD Academic Assembly Abstract Issue, MEMC GREAT Abstract Issue, CORD Clinical Pathological Cases (CPC) publications, and the University of Maryland CPC publications.

We would like to offer our deepest thanks to our sponsors: California ACEP, ACOEP and California AAEM, our 81 department subscribers, 6 AAEM State Chapter Subscribers, our 65 section editors and editorial board members, hundreds of reviewers, our dedicated team members, and our publisher, the Department at Emergency Medicine at UC Irvine, that have made it possible for us to thrive. Thank you to our authors and readers who are the reason we all work so hard for WestJEM.


November 22nd, 2017

Joint Statement from the Emergency Medicine Community on the Loss of Dr. Kevin Rogers

All of us here from the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine would like to offer our deepest sympathies and condolences for the family and friends of Dr. Kevin Rogers.


October 10th, 2017

Editorial by Langdorf outlines WestJEM’s growing impact factor through robust indexing

One of the measures of a successful journal is its ability to make its published research available to other researchers, policy makers and thought leaders through robust indexing. WestJEM is indexed in all the world’s sources, including MEDLINE/Index Medicus, PubMed, PubMed Central, Europe PubMed Central, Embase, EBSCO/CINAHL, SCOPUS, HINARI (World Health Organization journal list) and Clarivate (formerly Thomson-Reuters) Emerging Sources Index. As an open access journal, we are members of the Directory of Open Access Journals, which indexes our abstracts.


June 22nd, 2017

Department Subscriber Article processing fee waiver changes for manuscripts accepted starting July 1, 2017

The article processing fee (APF) guidelines for the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine: Integrating Emergency Care with Population Health (WestJEM). With your support, our department subscriptions have increased to 80 departments and we have waived 140 manuscript APFs ($56,000 waived) during the past two academic years. Our department subscription is our effort to promote open access publishing for junior faculty and fellows, while minimizing costs to academic departments. Each waived APF for a paper from a sponsoring department means lost revenue, as the administrative costs of producing the journal continue to rise. WestJEM remains the lowest cost fully open access Medline indexed EM journal.


June 1st, 2017

WestJEM Article by Pallin et al., from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Featured in Medscape

The Infectious Diseases Society of America recommends that patients with cellulitis without systemic signs of infection, penetrating trauma, evidence of MRSA elsewhere, or injection drug use should receive an antimicrobial agent active only against streptococci. However, the Original Research paper titled “Skin Infections and Antibiotic Stewardship: Analysis of Emergency Department Prescribing Practices, 2007-2010” by Pallin, MD, MPH, et al., illustrates the concerns with physicians prescribing medications that include MRSA activity for simple cellulitis.


May 18th, 2017

WestJEM Article by Ben-Yakov et al., from University of Toronto, Featured in U.S. News & World Report

The use of search engines and online social media (OSM) websites by healthcare providers is increasing and may even be used to search for patient information. This raises several ethical issues that are discussed in an Original Research paper titled “Do Emergency Physicians and Medical Students Find It Unethical to ‘Look up’ Their Patients on Facebook or Google” by Ben-Yakov, MD, et al. The article was referenced to further elaborate on this prevalent and growing discussion.


March 19th, 2017

WestJEM would like to congratulate the winners of the AAEM/RSA Paper Competition!

WestJEM, in partnership with the American Academy of Emergency Medicine Resident and Student Association (AAEM/RSA), is proud to recognize the winners of the AAEM/RSA WestJEM Population Health Research Compeition. The competition was designed to recognize and promote junior scholarship specifically in areas that affect the health of patient populations. WestJEM sponsored competition awards were presented at the AAEM Scientific Assembly in Orlando on March 19th, 2017.

1st Place
Daniel Gingold, MD MPH
University of Maryland Department of Emergency Medicine
The Impact of Maryland’s Medicaid Expansion on Emergency Department High Utilizers

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Runner-Up
Nhan Do, MD
Kern Medical Center
Combating the Methamphetamine Epidemic: Education is Insufficient

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Runner-Up
Zachary Olson, MD
St Thomas Health University of Tennessee Health Science Center Murfreesboro / Nashville
Patient Satisfaction Scores Following Food Snack Intervention

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March 10th, 2017

Dr. Peter Bell Appointed Dean of Liberty University College of Osteopathic Medicine

WestJEM would like to congratulate Dr. Peter Bell on his recent appointment as Dean of Liberty University College of Osteopathic Medicine!  Dr. Bell has not only been a longtime supporter of WestJEM, he has led a meritorious career both as an academic and as a clinician. His unique qualification as an educator and an innovator will certainly lead to promising and successful leadership. Once again, congratulations to Dr. Bell and his family!


February 14th, 2017

WestJEM Article by Dr. Amit Chandra, Mentioned in NY Times Article

‘Airline carriers have a long tradition of serving peanuts on flights, and often serve little else. But the practice also presents a challenge to travelers with severe nut allergies, who can suffer a reaction simply by touching a surface that has been exposed to nuts.’  Dr. Amit Chandra’s article published in WestJEM titled, “In-flight Emergencies was featured to further elaborate on the frequency of in-flight allergic emergencies. The study serves a pivotal role in guiding future management of such occurrences.

 


January 31st, 2017

WestJEM article by Dr. Brad Shy, MD, discusses how the Trump presidency has and will continue to affect emergency care delivery

In his commentary piece titled “Immigrants, the Emergency Physician and Election Day,” Dr. Brad Shy discusses how the Trump presidency may affect not only the lives of immigrant patients, but also on Emergency Medicine as a specialty. Dr. Shy provides a brief perspective on caring for immigrant patients and working with colleagues from immigrant communities.

Please read the full article here.

 


January 28th, 2017

Special Issue in Educational Research and Practice from CDEM and CORD Now Available Online!

Please read full issue here.

 


 

January 24th, 2017

Dr. Shahram Lotfipour is awarded the prestigious Robert McNamara Award by American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM)

Dr. Shahram Lotfipour, Professor of Emergency Medicine at University of California, Irvine, and Managing Associate Editor of Western Journal of Emergency Medicine: Integrating Emergency Care with Population Health, was awarded the Robert McNamara Award by the American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM). The award will be presented at the AAEM Scientific Assembly in Orlando in March, 2017.

This award recognizes an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to AAEM in the area of academic leadership. Nominees for this award must have 10 or more years of experience in an EM academic leadership position.

Dr. Lotfipour has been the driving administrative force behind WestJEM for nearly a decade. WestJEM is the official journal of the California Division Chapter of AAEM, and had its origin as the California Journal of Emergency Medicine in 1999. Since 2007, with the launch of WestJEM, Dr. Lotfipour has guided the publishing, societal and departmental sponsorship, and indexing of the journal, as it achieved its place as the premier open-access journal in the specialty. WestJEM now has 19,415 bimonthly electronic subscriptions and 4,323 quarterly print subscriptions. WestJEM focuses on how social conditions impact the composition of patients seeking care in emergency departments worldwide. There are six full-text online issues and four print issues published per year for the sponsoring societies and subscribing departments. WestJEM actively supports scholarly publishing from junior faculty by devoting additional space, consideration and editorial support.

 


 

January 19th, 2017

CPC-EM: Birth of a New Journal!

Clinical Practice and Cases in Emergency Medicine (CPC-EM) is a new journal affiliated with the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine (WestJEM) and will offer the latest in patient care case reports, clinicopathological cases and images in the field of emergency medicine. The new journal is fully open-access, peer reviewed, and available anywhere with an internet connection without cost. WestJEM is spinning off the case reports and images from the core journal to continue to encourage submissions from junior authors, faculty, and residents of established and developing EM programs. The numbers of case reports and image submissions have increased dramatically over the years, and given constraints of space in the core journal, we have had to decline more than 80% of submissions. There is clearly a demand for publication and dissemination which we are providing through CPC-EM. The new journal will continue to foster junior scholarship and help grow WestJEM to a more substantial and influential journal. For more information, please find editorial pieces written by Drs. McPheeters and Langdorf here.

 

November 9, 2016

WestJEM would like to congratulate the winners of the ACOEP Paper Competition!

The WestJEM sponsored competition awards were presented at the ACOEP Scientific Assembly in San Francisco on November 3rd, 2016.

1st Place
Brian Lehnhof, DO
Kent Hospital, Warwick RI
Electrocardiographic Manifestations and Clinical Outcomes of Severe Hyperkalemia: Can the Electrocardiogram Risk Stratify for Short Term Adverse Events?

2nd Place
Kenneth Heidle, DO
St. Vincent Hospital, Erie PA
Prehospital Factors Associated with Advanced Cardiac Care in Patients Reporting Chest Pain in the Absence of STEMI

3rd Place
Jon Laack, DO
Lakeland Health, St. Joseph MI
Telemedicine in the Emergency Department:  Comparing the frequency of follow-up for wounds after discharge from the Emergency Department, a randomized controlled trial


October 25, 2016

WestJEM Article by Nadia Zuabi et al., from University of California Irvine, Featured in Modern Healthcare

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) of 1986 was enacted to prevent hospitals from “dumping” or refusing service to patients for financial reasons. The statute prohibits discrimination of emergency department (ED) patients for any reason. Modern Healthcare references the article by highlighting that EMTALA is ‘no guarantee of appropriate emergency care.’


 

July 5, 2016

WestJEM Article by Dr. Shahram Lotfipour, MD, MPH from University of California Irvine, Mentioned in MedScape

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there is a 23 percent increase of licensed drivers 65 years and older in the U.S. from 1999 to 2009. Older Adult motor vehicle collisions often require more resources and oldser adult patients require specific needs in order to ensure better outcomes. Medscape mentioned the WestJEM article, Vital Signs: Emergency Department and Older Adult Motor Vehicle Collisions: Prevention is Paramount, which reviews research findings on on Older Adult Motor Vehicle Collisions and comments on current recommendations and policies for the growing older-adult driving population and ways to increase injury prevention and screening methodology.


 July 2, 2016

WestJEM Article by Jeffrey D. Ho, MD from Hennepin County Medical Center, Mentioned in Journalist’s Resource

Sudden and unexpected arrest-related death (ARD) has been a controversial issue due to the fact that there is insufficient surveillance and causation data available to explain these deaths. When an ARD occurs, there are polarizing reactions by the law enforcement, the public, and the medical community. Journalist’s Resource mentioned the WestJEM article, Unexpected Arrest-Related Deaths in America: 12 Months of Open Source Surveillance, which reports on 12 months of surveillance data using a novel data collection methodology.


June 9, 2016

WestJEM Article by Emily Merchant, MD from Madigan Army Medical Center, Mentioned in ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (TCM) is an unusual form of acute cardiomyopathy showing left ventricular apical ballooning, often triggered by intense physical or emotional distress. Although well known in cardiology, awareness of this entity is still developing in emergency medicine. ABC News mentioned the WestJEM article, Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy: A Case Series and Review of the Literature, which reports four cases of TCM and a review of the literature on the topic.


May 18, 2016

WestJEM’s Top Editorial Board Member of 2015-2016

Congratulations to Linda Murphy on being WestJEM’s Top Editorial Board Member of 2015-2016. WestJEM recognizes Linda Murphy’s impact and dedication, especially her contributions in the journal’s indexing, marketing, logistics, and our partnership with Altmetric.

Linda Murphy
Linda Murphy, MLIS       UCI Health School of Medicine Librarian

 May 18, 2016

WestJEM’s Top Section Editors of 2015-2016

Congratulations to Michael Gottlieb and James R. Langabeer, II on being WestJEM’s Top Section Editors of 2015-2016. Dr. Michael Gottlieb is an Emergency Medicine Resident at Cook County Hospital in Chicago and is an active member of AAEM/RSA. Dr. James R. Langabeer is a Professor of Emergency Medicine at University of Texas Medical School. WestJEM greatly appreciates their strong dedication and contributions to this journal.

James-Langabeer II, MBA, EMT, PhD
James Langabeer II, MBA, EMT, PhD University of Texas Medical School
Michael Gottlieb, MD
Michael Gottlieb, MD               Cook County Hospital

May 18, 2016

WestJEM Article by Scott G. Weiner, MD, MPH from Tufts University School of Medicine, Mentioned in Physicians Practice

Advertising emergency department (ED) wait times has become a common practice in the United States. Proponents of this believe that it will steer patients to the ED which will increase hospital revenue and decompress overburdened hospital systems. However, opponents of this believe that there are multiple risks to the public health and that caution about its use should be advised. Physicians Practice mentioned the WestJEM article, Advertising Emergency Department Wait Times , which reports of three sample cases demonstrating the pitfalls of advertising ED wait times.


March 11, 2016

WestJEM Article by Christopher Houston, MD from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Mentioned in Physician’s Weekly

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services requires that hospitals report time-based metrics to evaluate emergency department performance. It is expected that some of these metrics will be used to determine Medicare reimbursement rates. Physician’s Weekly mentioned the WestJEM article, Waiting for Triage: Unmeasured Time in Patient Flow, which quantifies the time spent waiting to be triaged for all patients arriving to the ED. As reimbursement to the hospital may be tied to these metrics, it is essential to accurately record the time of arrival.


March 3, 2016

WestJEM Article by Ryan K. Misek, DO from Midwestern University, Mentioned in Physician’s Weekly

Emergency department (ED) “crowding” is an international problem due to its association with increased patient morbidity and mortality. One of the major contributing factors to this “crowding” is patient boarding. Physician’s Weekly mentioned the WestJEM article, Predictors of Psychiatric Boarding in the Emergency Department, which discusses the factors amenable to change and identify interventions that could lead to a decrease in overall psychiatric patient length of stay and improve patient care.


February 8, 2016

WestJEM Article by Robert Jones, MD from Madigan Army Medical Center, Mentioned in TakePart

Chlorine gas represents a hazardous material threat that has long been known for its pulmonary irritant properties. Recognizing the threat posed by chlorine, both in the form of an accidental release as well as an unconventional weapon, is an important first step to being prepared for this type of incident. TakePart mentioned the WestJEM article, Chlorine Gas: An Evolving Hazardous Material Threat and Unconventional Weapon, which discusses recent events involving chlorine disasters and its use by terrorists, as well as strategies to deal with managing acute chlorine exposure events.


February 5, 2016

WestJEM Article by Tareg Bey, MD, FACEP from UC Irvine Medical Center, Mentioned in The Conversation

Controversy surrounds Second Impact Syndrome, a rare condition that even the frequency of its occurrence is in question. It is devastating in that young, healthy patients may die within a few minutes. The Conversation mentioned the WestJEM article, Second Impact Syndrome, which presents guidelines for appropriate follow up and evaluation by a specialist when necessary.


February 1, 2016

WestJEM Articles Highlight the San Bernardino Shooting Emergency Department Response and the Frozen Funding on Firearm Research

On December 2, 2015, a terror attack resulted in a multi-casualty incident (MCI) in the city of San Bernardino. In a recent article, The San Bernardino, California, Terror Attack: Two Emergency Departments’ Response, the crucial emergency medical response of two nearby trauma centers is analyzed to show how two different teaching hospitals prepared for and coordinated the medical care for these victims. By shedding light on the events that unfolded in both emergency departments that day, the article hopes to open up discussions that will lead to the improvement of future MCIs. Seemingly in tandem with the events in San Bernardino, another recently published article, Frozen Funding on Firearm Research: “Doing Nothing is No longer an Acceptable Solution” highlights the hurdles of solving the problem of firearm violence in the United States resulting from the lack of public health research on the topic itself. In the article, the authors provide an explanation of how this ban on firearm research affects emergency physicians across the country.


January 19, 2016

New ACA Rule for Balance Billing and Network Adequacy for Emergency Medical Care

Dr. Ali Raja’s article titled “Access to In-Network Emergency Physicians and Emergency Departments Within Federally Qualified Health Plans in 2015” was published in WestJEM on January 12, 2016, and his work has been featured in an ACEP press release. A summary follows: In a national sample of health insurance plans sold across the United States through the federal Health Insurance Marketplace in 2015, one in five provider networks lacked identifiable in-network emergency physicians. Plans lacking identifiable emergency physicians spanned nearly half (44%) of the 34 states using the federal Marketplace in 2015. Compared to previously published data, there are substantially more provider networks lacking emergency physician coverage (22%) than for any other specialty analyzed (max 8%). That may be due to the lack of enforcement of network adequacy standards on the part of the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), which mandates minimum requirements for plans sold through the federal marketplace. In lieu of applying network adequacy standards to emergency medicine, CMS has instituted a minimum payment threshold for out-of-network emergency physicians. This study’s findings come as high-cost emergency care and “surprise medical bills” are on the rise as a result of “balance billing,” the practice by which patients are billed by out-of-network physicians at in-network facilities.


November 10, 2015

WestJEM partners with Altmetrics to track the social media impact of scholarly publications

At The Western Journal of Emergency Medicine: Integrating Emergency Care with Population Health (WestJEM), we are committed to using emerging technology to improve the scope of reach for our authors’ scholarly work, enhancing our journal’s relevance in the digital age. As researchers, we care about who and what is being said of our work. We want to see the reach and impact of our research. As a result, WestJEM is now working with Altmetric, an alternative metric based service that provides a holistic picture of the attention surrounding each WestJEM article that is published. Each article is now linked to a unique Altmetric score that quantifies the attention gathered by social media. In partnering with Altmetric, we hope to provide our authors with valuable feedback that will, in part, encourage the widespread dissemination of research in emergency care and population health. Read more here.


November 4, 2015

WestJEM’s Dr. Christopher Kang elected to the National ACEP Board of Directors

The Western Journal of Emergency Medicine: Integrating Emergency Care with Population Health (WestJEM) would like to recognize and congratulate our Disaster Medicine section editor, Dr. Christopher Kang, for being elected to the American College of Emergency Physicians’ National Board of Directors during the Council Meeting in Boston. We appreciate your commitment and involvement to our journal.


October 20, 2015

WestJEM’s Dr. Michael Epter awarded the Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award

WestJEM would like to congratulate our education section editor Dr. Michael Epter, Residency Director of Emergency Medicine at Maricopa Medical Center, for being a recipient of ACGME’s Parker J. Palmer “Courage to Teach” Award. We appreciate your involvement and dedication to the journal.


October 15, 2015

WestJEM Article by Tareg Bey, MD, FACEP from UC Irvine Medical Center, Mentioned in Medical Daily

Second Impact Syndrome is a controversial term that occurs with any two events involving head trauma. Emergency physicians should be aware of this syndrome and counsel patients and their parents concerning when to allow an athlete to return to play. The Medical Daily mentioned the WestJEM article, Second Impact Syndrome, which presents guidelines for appropriate follow up and evaluation by a specialist when necessary.


July 1, 2015

WestJEM welcomes new team members

WestJEM would like to welcome new team members for the 2015-2016 year.


May 22, 2015

WestJEM Article by Christoph Griessenauer, MD from University of Alabama at Birmingham, Mentioned in NPR

Outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMG) cause a particular high risk of violence in the emergency department (ED) which may arise due to the lack of cultural awareness of OMG culture among the ED personnel. OMG members that present to the ED tend to be followed by other members of their gang, and it is important to explore knowledge of their way of life in order to maintain order and safety in the ED. NPR mentioned the WestJEM article, Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs: Aspects of the One-Percenter Culture for Emergency Department Personnel to Consider, which discusses findings from using a standard search engine to obtain reports from law enforcement agencies and studies in academic journals on OMGs.


May 19, 2015

WestJEM Article by Christoph Griessenauer, MD from University of Alabama at Birmingham, Mentioned in Vox

Outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMGs) present to the emergency department as a result of motor vehicle accidents or interpersonal violence. There is a lack of overview of OMG culture with emergency department personnel, which is essential in maintaining order in the emergency department as well as the safety of the patient. Vox mentioned the WestJEM article, Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs: Aspects of the One-Percenter Culture for Emergency Department Personnel to Consider, which discusses various aspects of OMG culture in hopes for emergency department personnel to better understand and treat the outlaw biker.


May 18, 2015

WestJEM Article by Christoph Griessenauer, MD from University of Alabama at Birmingham, Mentioned in The Huffington Post

Outlaw motorcycle gangs are an iconic element of criminal landscape in the United States. Understanding the various aspects of their culture and mentality can help optimize treatment for these patients and can aid in maintaining order when an injured outlaw biker is presented to the ED. The Huffington Post mentioned the WestJEM article, “Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs: Aspects of the One-Percenter Culture for Emergency Department Personnel to Consider,” which highlights the increasing prevalence of biker gangs in America and how their actions and behaviors affect hospital operations and business within their community.


May 18, 2015

WestJEM Article by Christoph Griessenauer, MD from University of Alabama at Birmingham, Mentioned in Discovery News

Emergency department personnel may encounter outlaw bikers who have been injured in motor vehicle accidents or through interpersonal violence. It is critical to determine the cause of the biker’s injuries, as scenarios in which a biker has been injured by enemies of his clubs or by a citizen can predispose the biker and his gang members to hostile behavior. Anticipating these scenarios may assist emergency department personnel to anticipate gang-related violence. Discovery News mentioned the WestJEM article, “Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs: Aspects of the One-Percenter Culture for Emergency Department Personnel to Consider”, which discusses the aspects of outlaw motorcycle gang culture in hopes that emergency department personnel may better understand the mentality of the outlaw biker and the members and anticipate how to handle them.


April 1, 2015

WestJEM Article by Kristi L. Koenig, MD from University of California, Mentioned in MESH Daily Situational Awareness Brief

The 2014 measles outbreak, originating in West Africa, quickly became a public health emergency in the United States. The MESH Daily Situational Awareness Brief mentioned the WestJEM article, Identify-Isolate-Inform: A Tool for Initial Detection and Management of Measles Patients in the Emergency Department, which recommends using the Identify-Isolate-Inform tool developed for Ebola for management of potential measles patients in the ED.


March 12, 2015

WestJEM Accepted for CME Accreditation

WestJEM is proud to announce that our proposed activity, WestJEM Manuscript Review has been approved for CME accreditation starting July 1, 2015.


March 10, 2015

2014 FOEM Research Paper Competition Winner Sponsored by WestJEM

Congratulations to first place winner, Dr. Brian T. Taylor for “Discrepancy Between Clinician and Research Assistant in TIMI Score Calculation (TRIAGED CPU).” WestJEM proudly sponsors the FOEM Research Paper Competition and looks forward to sponsoring the 2015 event. Click here to read this year’s winning paper.


February 23, 2015

WestJEM’s Editorial Board Member, Dr. Scott Zeller, Awarded Doctor of the Year by the National Council for Behavioral Health

Dr. Zeller created and led a multicenter guidelines project for Best Practices in the Evaluation and Treatment of Agitation. In addition, his Alameda Model addresses the problem of individuals spending long hours in the ED, providing timely, quality care in a more appropriate setting, reducing delays by more than 80% and unnecessary hospitalizations by more than 75%. View more here. Read more of Dr. Zeller’s work by clicking Effects of a Dedicated Regional Psychiatric Emergency Service on Boarding of Psychiatric Patients in Area Emergency Departments and Overview of Project BETA: Best Practices in Evaluation and Treatment of Agitation.


February 3, 2015

Collaboration Between WestJEM and CDEM-CORD

We are pleased to announce that CDEM and CORD have collaborated with WestJEM to develop the WestJEM CDEM – CORD Education Supplement, anticipated for publication in Fall 2015. We are excited about this collaboration and believe it will be an excellent opportunity for our collective memberships along with others in the EM community to publish high quality educational research, collective reviews, educational advances, etc.

The following manuscript categories will be accepted:
  • Original Research (Quantitative and Qualitative)
  • Brief Research Report
  • Systematic Review
  • Educational Advances
  • Brief Educational Advances (innovations) for on-line version.

November 18, 2014

WestJEM Accepted for Indexing in the National Library of Medicine’s Medline Database

The Western Journal of Emergency Medicine: Integrating Emergency Care with Population Health (WestJEM), published by the Department of Emergency Medicine at University of California Irvine for the past 11 years, has been accepted for indexing in the National Library of Medicine’s MEDLINE database beginning with Volume 15, Issue 1, 2014. UC Irvine’s Department of Emergency Medicine is the only academic department in the United States to publish a specialty journal. WestJEM is only the fifth such specialty journal in the nation and the first in 25 years. WestJEM is the only American mainstream journal that is proudly open-access, disseminating research and best practices to the developed and developing world, wherever an internet connection exists. The journal, which has a print circulation of 3,000 and electronic distribution of 12,000, has had more than 3.2 million page hits and article downloads. WestJEM publishes more than 150 papers per year in bimonthly issues.


November 8, 2014

WestJEM Article by Tareg Bey, MD, FACEP from UC Irvine Medical Center, Mentioned in TODAY Health

“If kids return to play too soon after a concussion or a head injury, they’re at risk for Second Impact Syndrome, which is a really serious brain injury,” said Dr. Tracy Zaslow, a sports medicine physician at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.


November 4, 2014

WestJEM article mentioned in California Healthfax

A study conducted at five Alameda County emergency departments shows that hospitals can reduce boarding times for psychiatric patients by coordinating care with a local psychiatric emergency services provider. Continue reading here.


November 2, 2014

Psych Boarding ACEP Top Priority

Emergency physicians relish their roles being on the front line. We’re on the front line with Ebola. And we’re finding out that there are certain ways Ebola patients should be treated or looked for rather than the way it’s being done right now. We really think there should be a regionalization of centers. In other words, put the experts who really know how to put on an PPE and other technical equipment and take it off safely in concentrated centers. Concentrated centers that are more likely to see these patients and also have the expertise by doing it frequently enough so that they don’t put themselves in danger. Continue reading here.


November 1, 2014

Open Access Journals: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Traditional academic publishing developed with two main sources of revenue. First, individuals and organizations subscribe to provide revenue to cover costs of publishing, and generate publisher and academic society profits. Secondly, these journals sell advertising to drug and device manufacturers, and organizations recruiting faculty, fellows and building attendance at CME events. Continue reading here.


October 8, 2014

UC Irvine disaster medicine experts examine Ebola preparations 

When the World Health Organization announced in early August that the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was an international health emergency, Dr. Kristi L Koenig began anticipating the “what ifs.” Continue reading here.


September 26, 2014

A BOLD IDEA: The “Population” Specialist by Dr. Judith E. Tintinalli, MD, MS

Emergency medicine today is very different from emergency medicine of the 1970s, when our practice was limited to the physical confines of the emergency department (ED) and the ambulance.

So—WHO ARE WE ANYWAY?

Family doctors take care of your family.

Surgeons cut you open.

Pediatricians take care of kids.

Anesthesiologists put you to sleep.

Cardiologists fix your heart.

Emergency physicians…….? Continue reading here.


 August 1, 2014

Social media, public scholarship, and injury prevention

This marks the Emory Center for Injury Control’s fifth special issue on injury prevention and control. Each year we have tried to identify important themes for injury prevention and public health, such as bridging research to practice, multidisciplinary collaborations, and vulnerable populations. This year our focus is on using social media in injury prevention practice and research. Continue reading here.


July 2, 2014

Crucial Action Need to End Elder Abuse Among the Poor

According to a 2010 study appearing in the American Journal of Public Health(AJPH), abuse among America’s elderly is, unfortunately, prevalent. It manifests in many forms: psychological, physical, sexual, financial abuse and neglect all which threaten seniors in our community. However, researchers found that the rates of elder mistreatment among respondents were even higher than reported in the AJPH report. Read more about WestJem’s article here.


July 1, 2014

WestJEM welcomes new team members

The Western Journal of Emergency Medicine welcomes new team members for the 2014-2015 year.


May 1, 2014

Keeping Research Relevant: WestJEM Bi-monthly Electronic Issues Coming Soon

At The Western Journal of Emergency Medicine: Integrating Emergency Care with Population Health (WestJEM), we’re committed to using technology to disseminate our authors’ scholarly work and enhance our journal’s relevance in the digital age. Rapid dissemination to the world in an open-access format maximizes impact and promotes academic discourse. To align our journal’s goals with the increasing pace of technology, we are moving towards a dramatic change. We listened to respondents from our survey, looked at timetables for other journals, and considered the time to publication for articles in WestJEM, which is longer than we would like. WestJEM is committed to maximizing the visibility and influence of our authors’ work, but delays from acceptance to publication threaten this. With these changes, we plan to bring the best research and content to the world sooner. Continue reading here.


February 5, 2014

The Growth of Animal Assisted Therapy Means that Man’s Best Friend May Soon Be Man’s Best Medicine

A therapy pet can also modulate a relationship between a client and his or her counselor. “You are dealing with powerful and overwhelming emotions, but you can’t hug a client,” says Kimbley. “With a dog present, that need is therefore met.” Read more here.


February 1, 2014

WestJEM’s Impact Factor, h-index, and i10-index: Where We Stand

The journal impact factor (JIF) is one way to assess a journal’s status, and helps to weight the difference between journals. The impact factor is a ratio that was initially started in 1975 to indicate the average reach and importance of articles published by a journal; it has since been additionally applied to indicate similar relevance of authors. The JIF helps shift concern for publishers away from achieving a high total quantity of publications and encourages journals to accept more relevant works that can be used and cited by peers.Continue reading here.


December 12, 2013

The Problems of Incidental Findings in Medicine

Abnormalities on medical tests that weren’t what doctors were looking for—and probably mean nothing—can cause a lot of anxiety, time, and money. Continue reading about the study here. 


November 1, 2013

WestJEM’s Technological Advances: Electronic Access for Smartphones and Tablets

One of the major goals for the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine: Integrating Emergency Care with Population Health (WestJEM) is to make our electronic content accessible to our official sponsors, state chapter and department membership. WestJEM’s open access model allows anyone with Internet to access our content, but recent mobile technological advances by Apple and Android propelled us to create an improved method of content viewing.Continue reading here.


October 25, 2013

Utilizing Cognitive Rest to Aid in Adolescent Concussions

Should we handle adolescent or pediatric concussions any differently? The answer is yes. The young brain is still developing, and we don’t really know the long-term effect of a concussion on a developing brain. Continue reading about the study here.


September 16, 2013

Psychiatric Boarding: Averting Long Waits in the Emergency Rooms

Psychiatric patients awaiting treatment in hospital emergency departments (EDs) for hours and even days—a process known as “boarding”—has become a major issue across the US, with exposés appearing in publications such as The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.1,2 A facility in South Carolina recently made national news after keeping such a patient for a stunning 38 days.3 With few options for care at most sites other than transfer out for psychiatric hospitalization, EDs are often forced to hold patients who are acutely dangerous to themselves or others for long periods until an inpatient bed can be obtained. Continue reading here.


August 1, 2013

Using a Multidisciplinary Approach for a Multi-faceted Public Health Problem

The Emory Center for Injury Control is a multi-university consortium dedicated to studying and preventing unintentional injuries and violence. A major goal of our Center is to transcend academic boundaries and disciplines to connect research to practice. As such, we are focusing our fourth special Western Journal of Emergency Medicine issue on multidisciplinary research. Continue reading here.


July 1, 2013

WestJEM welcomes new team members

WestJEM would like to welcome new team members for the 2013-2014 year.


 August 1, 2012

Association between Intimate Partner Violence and Health Behaviors of Female Emergency Department Patients

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious and commonly encountered public health issue in the United States (U.S.). Studies have shown that almost one-fourth of U.S. women have been victimized by an intimate partner at some point in their lives, with higher rates in low-income and black populations.13 Continue reading here.


July 1, 2012

WestJEM welcomes new team members

WestJEM would like to welcome new team members for the 2012-2013 year.


July 1, 2011

Using policy to strengthen the reach and impact of injury prevention efforts

Injury prevention and control remains a key priority in public health and medicine. Across all age groups and regardless of the measure used, injury is a leading cause of morbidity and death with tremendous costs to society.14 When considering the burden and scope of injuries, in the United States (U.S.) and elsewhere, injury prevention remains an important but under-resourced health concern.57 Some specific injury prevention topics, such as road safety, have received the necessary attention and resources to have a significant impact. Investments made early led to the creation of tools and surveillance systems to track motor vehicle crashes and have made it possible to evaluate interventions and new policies.812 These tools and resources, combined with the fact that it is easy to understand and convey the scope and dynamics of motor vehicle crashes have made it a top injury prevention priority.1315 However, these tools and resources are not available across all injury areas. Continue reading here.


July 1, 2011

WestJEM welcomes new team members

WestJEM would like to welcome new team members for the 2011-2012 year.


August 1, 2010

The Emory Center for Injury Control: Vision and Priorities for Reducing Violence and Injuries through Interdisciplinary Collaborations

Injury is the leading cause of death in the United States for persons between the ages of 1 and 441. We see evidence of the scope and burden of injuries in the emergency department (ED), where annually an estimated 41.4 million patients are seen with injury-related visits, accounting for over one-third of ED presentations2. While many disciplines are involved in injury-related research, prevention, and practice, emergency physicians are on the frontlines of this epidemic, and they treat patients with preventable injuries as well as those with the sequelae of violence. Emergency physicians are also in a unique position to prevent future injuries and to reduce the consequences of existing injuries especially through screening and brief interventions, and the use of a teachable moment for the benefit and future safety of their patients2. It is because emergency medicine is so integrated and important for injury prevention and research3 that we wanted to showcase current findings and projects by researchers affiliated with the Emory Center for Injury Control (ECIC) in this special issue of the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine. Continue reading here.


July 1, 2010

WestJEM welcomes new team members

WestJEM would like to welcome new team members for the 2010-2011 year.


November 1, 2009

Promoting International Emergency Medicine through WestJEM

This issue of the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine (WestJEM) is devoted to the dissemination of international research and education in emergency medicine (EM). As the specialty gains recognition across the globe, the sharing of ideas from East to West, North to South becomes not only more feasible, but more important. One of the reasons for the name, “Western Journal of Emergency Medicine” was to provide an English language outlet to the Western hemisphere for Eastern hemisphere research. Over the past three years, we have increasingly received submissions from international authors. To recognize this expanded scope, we have chosen to cluster our international papers into a single issue. Continue reading here.


July 1, 2009

WestJEM welcomes new team members

WestJEM would like to welcome new team members for the 2009-2010 year.


May 1, 2009

Turning Your Abstract into a Paper:Academic Writing Made Simpler

Academic writing is a critical skill distinct from creative writing. While brevity is vital, clarity in writing reflects clarity of thought. This paper is a primer for novice academic writers. Continue reading here.


July 1, 2008

WestJEM welcomes new team members

WestJEM would like to welcome new team members for the 2008-2009 year.


July 1, 2007

WestJEM welcomes new team members

Contact Information

WestJEM/ Department of Emergency Medicine
UC Irvine Health

333 The City Blvd. West, Rt 128-01
Suite 640
Orange, CA 92868, USA
Phone: 1-714-456-6389
Email: editor@westjem.org

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WestJEM
ISSN: 1936-900X
e-ISSN: 1936-9018

CPC-EM
ISSN: 2474-252X

Our Philosophy

Emergency Medicine is a specialty which closely reflects societal challenges and consequences of public policy decisions. The emergency department specifically deals with social injustice, health and economic disparities, violence, substance abuse, and disaster preparedness and response. This journal focuses on how emergency care affects the health of the community and population, and conversely, how these societal challenges affect the composition of the patient population who seek care in the emergency department. The development of better systems to provide emergency care, including technology solutions, is critical to enhancing population health.