patwari

This is a first draft (2024-12-26). If there’s anything you’d change, add or delete, I can add. This is based on things I’ve read & conversations with people in our department. Happy to add more. Efficiency in the Emergency Department is about maximizing impact by preserving your energy, managing limited resources, and streamlining workflows—so you…

This patient presented with palpitations. Their blood pressure was good and they were alert and talking. They had a strong preference not to be shocked. What is this EKG and what drug would you use to treat it. Hint: the QTc = 580 ms. There is no old EKG. Answer The EKG shows a monomorphic,…

Hospitals create a hazardous materials plan laid out with details on possible sources of contamination, hospital evacuation, taking into account specific hospital characteristics and treatment strategies.

a brief history of clot busting The EM community had always been wary about the thrombolytics literature. Ken Milne (Canadian EM doc) posts a summary on ACEPNOW in September 2020. There is a long history of studies on clot busting. year events 1950s streptokinase (from streptococcus) and urokinase (from human urine) used, but led to…

There are many types of brain imaging we can get in patients presenting with stroke. It’s good to know what the different types are and why we’d use them, but realistically we’d only probably get the bolded ones above.

Stroke care begins with prevention by addressing modifiable risk factors such as inactivity, HLD, diet, HTN, obesity, DM, cigarette smoking, cardiac disease, carotid stenosis and managing sickle cell. Non-modifiable risk factors include older age, male, race, family history, genetics and low birth weight. Much of this will hopefully occur with the patient’s primary care physician…

intro The Toxicology team doesn’t like an over-reliance on the CIWA order set for managing EtOH withdrawal in the ED. That’s not how we were taught (in ye oldde days), either. We were taught to give lots of valium until they were just sleepy. It is long acting enough to help them after they leave…

Understanding “Human Error” Humans make mistakes. Any system that depends on perfect performance by humans is doomed to fail. The risk of an accident is more a function of the complexity of the system than it is the people involved. Humans are not the weak link in a process. We are a source of resilience.…