Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Comparative Study
Evaluation of biphasic transthoracic defibrillation in an animal model of prolonged ventricular fibrillation.
To determine whether a biphasic defibrillation waveform (BDW) would produce a superior rate of converting prolonged ventricular fibrillation (VF) into a perfusing rhythm and delay the occurrence of asystole and/or pulseless electrical activity (PEA) during the resuscitation attempt, when compared with a monophasic defibrillation waveform (MDW). ⋯ BDW resulted in a superior rate of ROSC and delay in the occurrence of asystole/ PEA during the resuscitation attempt when compared with MDW.
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Review Case Reports
Clinical decision making: an emergency medicine perspective.
Clinical decision making (CDM) describes a form of qualitative inquiry that examines the thought processes involved in making medical decisions. A significant body of literature exists on the orderly "hypothetico-deductive" model of clinical decision making. ⋯ The concept of diagnostic uncertainty and the utility of the diagnosis of unknown etiology in the disposition phase of the emergency patient visit are discussed. Finally, a unique EM perspective on clinical decision-making errors is presented.