The American journal of emergency medicine
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A 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) is the standard of care for chest pain patients. However, 12-lead ECGs have difficulty detecting ischemia of the right ventricle or posterior wall of the heart. New technology exists to mathematically synthesize these leads from a 12-lead ECG; however, this technology has not been evaluated in the emergency department (ED). We assessed the level of agreement between synthesized 18-lead ECGs and actual 18-lead ECGs in identifying ST elevations, ST depressions, and T wave inversions in ED patients. ⋯ Synthesized 18-lead ECGs demonstrated 100% agreement with actual 18-lead ECGs in the identification of ST elevations and ST depressions and good agreement in the identification of T wave inversions in a sample of patients ED patients with complaints suspicious of cardiac origin.
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Situational syncope is a subtype of neurally mediated syncope and associated with specific circumstances. This paper is to assess the clinical characteristics and underlying causes of situational syncope. ⋯ These findings show that micturition was the most common cause of situational syncope in both children and adults. There were significant gender and age differences among situational syncope triggered by different causes. Most of situational syncope occurred in the upright position and nearly half of the patients had positive responses to HUTT.
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Observational Study
Use of the intubating laryngeal mask airway in the emergency department: A ten-year retrospective review.
Extraglottic devices, such as the intubating laryngeal mask airway (ILMA), facilitate ventilation and oxygenation and are useful for emergency airway management, especially as rescue devices. In the operating room setting the ILMA has been highly successful. However, its performance in the ED has not been described. We sought to describe the indications for and success of the ILMA when used in the ED. ⋯ The ILMA was highly successful in oxygenation, with reasonable intubation success, even when used infrequently by emergency physicians. The ILMA should be considered a valuable primary and rescue intubation device in the ED.
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Comparative Study Observational Study
Comparison of non-invasive CPAP with mask use in carbon monoxide poisoning.
Carbon monoxide (CO) is one of the major causes of poisoning worldwide. We aimed to investigate the efficacy of the continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) use in CO poisoning. ⋯ CPAP lowered the amount of CO in the blood faster than the mask; therefore, it may be effective in the treatment of CO poisoning.
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To describe differences in funded grants between male and female faculty in two academic emergency departments. ⋯ In this multicenter analysis, gender discrepancies exist among funded grants of EM faculty. Male recipients had higher academic ranking than their female counterparts. Female recipients were less likely to have government, institutional, and industry grants but received a greater percent effort on funding that was awarded.