6 Dec 2018

December 6, 2018

Written by REBEL Core

Friday, 2300 hours:

A 24 year-old woman presents to your Emergency Department after a motor vehicle collision. She was the restrained driver of a car that collided head-on with another vehicle. She is complaining only of chest pain and appears uncomfortable and anxious.  The monitor shows sinus tachycardia and you spot a sternal fracture on her chest x-ray.  After IVF and Fentanyl, she remains slightly tachycardic and you wonder:

  • Do I need to send a troponin?
  • If the troponin is negative does this patient need to be admitted?
  • What other testing should I consider in the Emergency Department?
Medical Categories: Trauma
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15 Nov 2018

November 15, 2018

Written by REBEL EM

Background: Cricoid pressure is dead, right? Many have made this claim including a brilliant argument against its use by John Hinds here. Despite the many eulogies, we continue to hear about cricoid pressure so it makes sense that we dive in to the background prior to addressing the recent JAMA Surgery publication.

Cricoid pressure was first described by Dr. Sellick in the 1960’s though similar techniques were described as far back as the 1770s (Sellick 1961). The Sellick’s maneuver entailed the application of pressure over the cricoid cartilage with the thumb and 1-2 additional fingers.  The goal was to compress the cricoid cartilage against the esophagus in order to occlude the esophagus and prevent regurgitation of stomach contents into the upper airway. Initial studies on the maneuver suffered from a bevy of methodological flaws including small n, lack of blinding or randomization and selection bias. Despite this, Sellick’s maneuver was widely adopted and taught to hordes of anesthesia, critical care and emergency residents.

Studies investigating cricoid pressure in the last decade have demonstrated a number of issues with claims that it can prevent passive regurgitation. Check out this free chapter on EMRAP for an in depth discussion. Dynamic MRI studies demonstrate that application of pressure to the cricoid cartilage displaces the esophagus laterally instead of occluding it (Smith 2003, Boet 2012). An ultrasound study demonstrated similar findings: in 60% of patients the esophagus was lateral to the airway and cricoid pressure led to displacement rather than occlusion in all patients. (Tsung 2012).

Additionally, application of cricoid pressure decreases airway patency and increases the chance that your view of the airway will be obscured. (Allman 1995, Palmer 2000, Smith 2002, Oh 2013). Finally, no study to date has demonstrated a reduction in aspiration episodes with the application of cricoid pressure. A large observational study of pregnant patients undergoing C-sections found no difference in aspiration events and that the overall aspiration event rate was low (Fenton 2009). However, up until this point, there has not been a high-quality, randomized controlled trial performed.

Medical Categories: Procedures and Skills
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12 Nov 2018

November 12, 2018

Written by REBEL EM

In October 2016, I was exposed to the vast world of Free Open Access Medical Education and MedTwitter. I was astounded and inspired by the different educators who were trying to make learning easier. The Knowledge Translation (KT) gap was being vastly shortened by some very smart people who took to social media to educate the rest of the world. Although there were knowledge bombs in all areas of medicine, I was particularly drawn to the ones most relevant to emergency medicine and critical care.

Each day in 2017, I used Twitter to share a few pearls with the world as my contribution to #FOAMed. I included the hashtag #TodayILearned (Today I Learned) so I could keep track of them to use for future projects. Here are just a few of those pearls:

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8 Oct 2018

October 8, 2018

Written by REBEL Core

Definition:

  • Accidental hypothermia is an unintentional core body temperature of < 35°C when heat loss to surroundings is greater than heat generation
  • Most frequent cause is environmental exposure
  • Patient with impaired thermoregulation can develop hypothermia in relatively warm environments
    • Elderly, underlying illness, trauma, intoxication, or malnutrition (Brown 2012)
Medical Categories: Environmental
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20 Sep 2018

September 20, 2018

Written by REBEL EM

Background: Venous thromboembolism (VTE) occurs frequently in patient with cancer. Treatment in this group entails a number of challenges including a higher rate of thrombosis recurrence and a higher risk of bleeding. Standard therapy in 2018 for both symptomatic and asymptomatic VTE is with low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH) based on this study. Prior to 2003, patients were treated with warfarin after bridging with either unfractionated or LMWH. This approach requires frequent monitoring due to unpredictable anticoagulation levels associated with drug interactions, malnutrition and vomiting. Due to these issues, treatment with LMWH alone may be both more efficacious as well as preferred by patients.

Medical Categories: Hematology and Oncology
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