Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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To report on the sixth survey of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) of emergency medicine faculty salaries, benefits, work hours, and department demographics for all programs accredited by the Residency Review Committee for Emergency Medicine (RRC-EM). ⋯ Reported salaries for full-time emergency medicine residency faculty continue to rise overall but fell for the first time in one region (the Midwest). Academic rank continues to correlate directly with salary. Fellowship training continues to show a negative correlation with salary. Significant regional differences in salaries have been present in all six SAEM surveys.
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Comparative Study
A highly sensitive ELISA D-dimer increases testing but not diagnosis of pulmonary embolism.
To determine the effect of introducing a rapid enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) D-dimer on the percentage of emergency department (ED) patients evaluated for pulmonary embolism (PE), the use of associated laboratory testing, pulmonary vascular imaging, and the diagnoses of PE. ⋯ In the study's academic ED, introduction of ELISA D-dimer testing was accompanied by an increase in PE evaluations, D-dimer testing, and pulmonary vascular imaging; there was no observed change in the rate of PE diagnosis.
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Controversy exists regarding the value and quality of required emergency medicine (EM) resident scholarly projects. ⋯ Resident scholarly projects at one institution were equally likely to use a prospective or retrospective design, and most were conducted at a single center. More than half of the projects were presented at national research meetings, and more than a third were subsequently developed into manuscripts and published in peer-reviewed journals. When an original research study is required for satisfying the scholarly requirement for EM residency graduation, resident projects can contribute to the EM literature.
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A patient's baseline health status may affect the ability to survive an acute illness. Emergency medicine research requires tools to adjust for confounders such as comorbid illnesses. The Charlson Comorbidity Index has been validated in many settings but not extensively in the emergency department (ED). The purpose of this study was to examine the utility of the Charlson Index as a predictor of one-year mortality in a population of ED patients with suspected infection. ⋯ This study suggests that the Charlson Index predicts one-year mortality among ED patients with suspected infection.
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Multicenter Study
How many attempts are required to accomplish out-of-hospital endotracheal intubation?
An important goal of emergency airway management is to complete endotracheal intubation (ETI) correctly, safely, and quickly, and repeated ETI attempts can increase patient morbidity and mortality. Clinical protocols limiting the number of ETI attempts may minimize harm, but this strategy also may reduce the frequency of successful ETI. ⋯ Out-of-hospital rescuers often require multiple attempts to accomplish ETI. A protocol limit of three attempts offers reasonable opportunity for accomplishing ETI within the constraints of the out-of-hospital environment.