The evaluation and management of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in the Emergency Department (ED) is fraught with questions: who should I evaluate, who should get a d-dimer, what should the d-dimer threshold be etc. Answers, unfortunately, are far less common. Due to the enormous volume of literature produced on the topic, it can be difficult for […]
Background: Pulmonary embolism is the leading cause of death in pregnancy and the puerperium – accounting for nearly 20% of maternal deaths in the United States – making rapid and accurate diagnosis critically important for emergency physicians, OB/GYNs, and all who take care of these women on a regular basis. Unfortunately, typical diagnostic pathways and […]
Mechanical Ventilation is a modality commonly used in the critically ill, but many providers, may not have a strong understanding of the basics. Emergency Medicine and Critical Care Physicians need to have a firm grasp of the basic concepts of mechanical ventilation because without it, we can do serious harm to our patients. Airway management […]
Background: The diagnosis of PE is a tricky thing. We want to limit over-testing patients and therefore, over-diagnosis. On the other hand, we don’t want to limit testing so much that we miss the diagnosis where treatment would make a difference. The pulmonary embolism rule-out criteria (PERC) was created to reduce testing in patients who […]
Background: Previously, I had given a talk on the use of thrombolytics in submassive PE in 2016. This year, I had the privilege of speaking at ACOEP 2017 again with an update on the critical pulmonary embolism patient. This post will serve as a reference for that talk. There are many ways to classify pulmonary […]
