Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
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A shortcut review was carried out to establish whether intravenous glucagon is a safe and effective treatment for patients with suspected lower oesophageal food bolus impaction. Seven studies were directly relevant to the question. ⋯ Its use may be associated with adverse effects such as vomiting, with the potential risk of oesophageal perforation. Intravenous glucagon should therefore be avoided.
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In the West Midlands region of the UK, delivery of pre-hospital care has been remodelled through introduction of a 24 h Medical Emergency Response Incident Team (MERIT). Teams including physicians and critical care paramedics (CCP) are deployed to incidents on land-based and helicopter-based platforms. Clinical practice, including delivery of rapid sequence induction of anaesthesia (RSI), is underpinned by standard operating procedures (SOP). This study describes the first 12 months experience of prehospital RSI in the MERIT scheme in the West Midlands. ⋯ This study demonstrates that operation within a system that provides high levels of exposure, underpinned by comprehensive and robust training and governance frameworks, promotes levels of performance in successful prehospital RSI regardless of base speciality or profession.
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Many health systems across the globe have introduced arrangements to deny payment for patients readmitted to hospital as an emergency. The purpose of this study was to develop an exploratory categorisation based on likely causes of readmission, and then to assess the prevalence of these different types. ⋯ In this exploratory categorisation, a large minority of emergency readmissions (eg, those that are potentially preventable or due to data artefacts) fell into groups potentially amenable to immediate reduction. For other categories, a hospital's ability to reduce emergency readmission is less clear. Reduction strategies and payment incentives must be carefully tailored to achieve stated aims.
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Pulmonary embolism (PE) is a leading cause of death in pregnancy and postpartum. Clinicians face a difficult choice when deciding whether to use diagnostic imaging to investigate for suspected PE in these patients, between risking potentially catastrophic consequences of missed diagnosis if imaging is withheld and risking unnecessary iatrogenic harm to both mother and fetus if imaging is overused. This paper explores the options for imaging and evidence for the use of clinical features, clinical predictions scores or biomarkers to select pregnant and postpartum women for imaging. It also considers where future research could be most appropriately directed.
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Physicians are called upon to teach students, residents, patients and their families in the clinical environment every day as part of clinical care. A fast-paced emergency department offers a unique set of challenges that require the physician to be an effective communicator. We present a top 10 list of ideas selected from the literature for the busy clinician to use on that next shift to improve bedside teaching.