Volume 16, Issue 2, March 2015
Brent Thoma, MD, MA et al.
The number of educational resources created for emergency medicine and critical care (EMCC) that incorporate social media has increased dramatically. With no way to assess their impact or quality, it is challenging for educators to receive scholarly credit and for learners to identify respected resources. The Social Media index (SMi) was developed to help address this.
Introduction: The objective of this study is to determine the degree of variation between the device’s estimated hemoglobin measurement and the actual venous hemoglobin concentration in undifferentiated emergency department (ED) patients.
Conclusion: These data suggest that noninvasive hemoglobin determination is not sufficiently accurate for emergency department use.
Introduction: We sought to estimate the prevalence of H. pylori infection in symptomatic patients using a convenience sample at a single urban academic ED and demonstrate the feasibility of ED-based testing.
Conclusion: In our ED, H. pylori infection was present in 1 in 4 patients with epigastric pain, and testing with a UBT was feasible. Further study is needed to determine the risk factors associated with infection, the prevalence of H. pylori in other EDs, the effect of the test on ED length of stay and the costeffectiveness of an ED-based test-and-treat strategy.
Introduction: Residents frequently criticize simulation training using current high-fidelity mannequins due to the poor quality of physical exam findings present, such as auscultatory findings, as it may lead them down an alternate diagnostic or therapeutic pathway.
Conclusion: A simulation stethoscope may be a useful adjunct to current emergency medicine simulation-based training. Residents both preferred the use of the simulation stethoscope and perceived physical exam findings to be more realistic, leading to improved fidelity.
A 29-year-old man with sudden onset of dyspnea and chest pain with impairment of the general status after falling down from five meters was transferred to our emergency department. He was completely asymptomatic before the injury, but hypotensive (80/50 mmHg) and tachycardic (112 beats/minute) after the injury. Chest radiograph revealed a bulging cardiac silhouette on the right paracardiac region with an increased cardiothoracic ratio of 70%.
