You are caring for a sick patient with an acute COPD exacerbation. What O2 sat should you target? What meds should you give? If you have to intubate, what are the issues you'll have to deal with? This week we glean some valuable management pearls for the management acute COPD exacerbations from this month's Internal Medicine module at Cooper.
Dr. Richard Byrne discussed a step-wise approach to treating and potentially discharging the patient in Afib with RVR. Read ahead to review the approach:
This week during our Internal Medicine module, Dr. Jillian Smith discussed approach to hemoptysis. Read ahead for highlights of this very informative talk....
For the final week of our cardiology module, Dr. Lisa Filippone presented a great case. A 24 y.o. male playing basketball developed palpitations, lightheadedness, dizziness and almost 'passed out'. On arrival to the ED the patient looked well and had no complaints except for palpitations: HR 190, BP 130/70. Lungs were clear, heart without an audible murmur and neuro exam was unremarkable. ECG shown is shown. What is the diagnosis and treatment?
This week at our EM/Cardiology interdisciplinary conference, Dr. Lisa Filippone presented a case of a 75 year old male who presented with acute SOB. This patient presented to the ED 3 days after a NSTEMI with hypotension and hypoxia. No injury pattern was identified on his ecg but his CXR was consistent with pulmonary edema. A bedside ECHO was performed that revealed the diagnosis....
This week for our Grand Rounds, Dr. Kate Aberger, MD, FACEP discussed Emergent Suffering in the ED. It is important that Emergency Physicians are aware of best practices when caring and communicating with patients nearing their end of life. Read ahead for useful Palliative Care tips.
To wrap up our toxicology module, Dr. Sumaya Mekkaoui reviewed serotonin syndrome. This can be a challenging diagnosis to make and is often misinterpreted as other psychiatric or medical syndrome. Look ahead for a quick review on the clinical presentation, drugs implicated in serotonin syndrome, and comparing/contrasting similar toxidromes.
The Urine Drug Screen (UDS) is a commonly used test in the emergency department, however there are many shortcomings that limit its diagnostic utility. The Urine Drug Screen is exactly that – a SCREENing and not a confirmatory test! This week Dr. Lauren Murphy educated us on: 1) the potential false positives and negatives of the UDAS and 2) the detection times that drug metabolites are at a concentration in the urine to trigger a positive result (cutoff value). Read ahead for the reference tables!
After the awesome RESUS/EM conference last week, we return to our module of the month: Toxicology. This week Dr. Lauren Murphy has summarized the key points of her talk on the toxic alcohols. Knowing a little bit about toxic alcohol ingestion is very useful, as it is a fatal toxicity but treatable when recognized in a timely manner!
Today, EM Daily with Cooper Medical School hosted a number of local residency programs for the first RESUS/EM conference. These fantastic lectures will be available on EM Daily in a couple weeks, but to hold you over, here are some pearls from the day!
