Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
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To describe injuries and illnesses in casualties rescued by Scottish mountain rescue teams during 1998 and 1999, with particular emphasis on major trauma. ⋯ Scottish MRTs are called upon to provide an advanced level of care for a significant number of casualties. There is a need for formalised opportunities for in hospital training, management protocols, and continuing research and audit-none of which currently exists.
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Emergency medicine is now proving a popular specialty in the United Kingdom. A recent report ranks emergency medicine second in specialties attracting the most applications for specialist registrar (SpR) interview. ⋯ It identifies areas in which a curriculum vitae may be improved. It should also enable emergency department trainees to set objectives for their early SpR years.
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To provide an objective assessment on callers' compliance with NHS Direct advice to attend an accident and emergency (A&E) department. ⋯ Assessing levels of compliance is difficult. These findings suggest that NHS Direct may have comparatively high levels of compliance compared with other similar services. However, using the single triage outcome as the means of identifying the advice given may oversimplify the range of possible advice given. The delay in attending A&E for the group of callers who were given other advice may indicate they had tried other actions. Further larger studies are needed to assess the appropriateness of referrals through investigation of clinical outcomes.
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To define and measure patient reported prehospital delay in presentation to the emergency department with chest pain and identify simple strategies that may reduce this delay. The authors investigated the null hypothesis that the patients choice of service to call for acute medical help has no effect on the timing of thrombolysis. ⋯ Patient with acute ischaemic chest pain who call their general practice instead of the ambulance service are likely to have delayed thrombolysis. This is likely to result in increased mortality. The most beneficial current approach is for general practices to divert all patients with possible ischaemic chest pain onset within 12 hours direct to the ambulance service.
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(1) To assess the proportion of patients of triage category 3-5 presenting to the minor side of an urban emergency department who present without taking prior pain relief, and (2) to describe the reasons why they do not take pain relief for their presenting complaint ⋯ Most patients presenting with painful conditions to the minor side of an urban emergency department had not taken pain relief. The study highlights there are many different reasons for this and staff should not presume that it was because the patient "did not think about it". Ongoing education of staff and patients is needed.