Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
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Review Meta Analysis
Dietary sugars versus glucose tablets for first-aid treatment of symptomatic hypoglycaemia in awake patients with diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
While glucose tablets have been advocated for treating symptomatic hypoglycaemia in awake patients, dietary sugars may be more convenient. We performed a systematic review to compare the impact of these treatment options on the relief of symptomatic hypoglycaemia, time to resolution of symptoms, blood glucose levels, complications and hospital length of stay. ⋯ When compared with dietary sugars, glucose tablets result in a higher rate of relief of symptomatic hypoglycaemia 15 min after ingestion and should be considered first, if available, when treating symptomatic hypoglycaemia in awake patients.
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Mobile health has promising potential in improving healthcare delivery by facilitating access to expert advice. Enabling experts to review images on their smartphone or tablet may save valuable time. This study aims at assessing whether images viewed by medical specialists on handheld devices such as smartphones and tablets are perceived to be of comparable quality as when viewed on a computer screen. ⋯ This study suggests that handheld devices could be a substitute for computer screens for teleconsultation by physicians working in emergency settings.
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Injuries to the foot are a common cause for presentation to the ED, and imaging is often used to aid in the diagnosis. The foot can be divided into three distinct anatomical regions: the forefoot, midfoot and hindfoot. ⋯ We provide pearls to radiographic interpretation and discuss prognostic implications and classification systems. Part 1 addresses forefoot injuries, part 2 reviews midfoot injuries and part 3 covers the hindfoot.
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Multicenter Study
Role of physician perception of patient smile on pretest probability assessment for acute pulmonary embolism.
Many clinicians use a global visual interpretation of patient appearance to decide if a patient looks sick or not. For patients with suspected acute pulmonary embolism (PE), we tested the relationship between visual appearance of a happy patient facial affect and probability of PE+ on CT pulmonary angiography (CTPA). ⋯ In patients with suspected PE, physician recollection of patients' smile+ was more common in PE+ patients, and was associated with a less accurate Wells score, primarily because physicians overestimated probability of alternative diagnosis. However, the overall diagnostic accuracy of physicians' gestalt did not differ with perceived smile status. These data suggest that the patients' smile had less effect on the numeric gestalt pretest probability assessment than on the binary decision about an alternative diagnosis.
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Multicenter Study
Clinical reasoning of junior doctors in emergency medicine: a grounded theory study.
Emergency medicine (EM) has a high case turnover and acuity making it a demanding clinical reasoning domain especially for junior doctors who lack experience. We aimed to better understand their clinical reasoning using dual cognition as a guiding theory. ⋯ We found a constant dialectic between intuitive and analytical cognition throughout the reasoning process. Our model of clinical reasoning by EM junior doctors illustrates the specific contextual manifestations of the dual cognition theory. Distinct diagnostic strategies are identified and together these give EM learners and educators a framework and vocabulary for discussion and learning about clinical reasoning.