ACEP Clinical Policy on Acute VTE 2018
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 individual clinicians to incorporate all of the information into a comprehensive approach. The ACEP policy subcommittee has taken this job on for the rest of us. This clinical policy addresses five critical questions but does so over 51 pages. We’ve boiled down the major points here. Read more →
In part 1, we discussed that the ventilator can deliver 3 types of breaths: controlled, assisted or spontaneous breaths. These breaths can be delivered either by a set pressure or a set tidal volume. Then we closed with a discussion of the common ventilator modes, which is simply just combining all these types of breaths together.
Definition: Salicylate toxicity is characterized by a constellation of symptoms caused by acute or chronic overdose of salicylate containing compounds. The most common salicylate is aspirin, but the group also includes topical forms of salicylates, methyl salicylate (Oil of Wintergreen), and bismuth subsalicylate (such as in Pepto-Bismol).
Definition: Encephalopathy that occurs secondary to thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency. While Wernicke encephalopathy is reversible with treatment, it can progress to the irreversible Korsakoff’s syndrome if left untreated.
Abscess management has evolved somewhat in the 14 years since my residency graduation. The point at which antibiotics are likely to be more helpful than harmful is not always easy to assess, and evidence based expert opinion has flip flopped impressively.
