Patients Without Discernible Pathology

The toughest of all dispositions is the ‘patient without discernible pathology’ (PWDP). What does the enlightened emergency physician do next?

Not just pneumonia…

CXR_CN_12oct2009

A 30 year-old male presented with 24 hours of worsening respiratory distress, following a 5-day prodrome of cough, fever, diarrhoea, lethargy and malaise.

Clinical Case Interpretation

CXR_Oct_14_2009

A 50 year-old man required intubation for seizure control after he presented in status epilepticus. His past history is notable for a brain tumour resection 5 years previously. His post-intubation chest radiograph is shown.

Pens, Swords and Peer Review

Have you ever submitted a scientific paper to a journal? Here are some insights into the Herculean labours of getting a paper published in a medical journal (with MJA excerpts).

Happy Emergency Nurses Day 2009

Emergency Nurses Week

Emergency Nurses Day recognizes the dedication and commitment of all emergency nursing professionals as vital care providers.

Ultrasound Guide for Emergency Physicians

Ultrasound for Emergency Physicians

The Ultrasound Guide for Emergency Physicians: a look at a great web-based resource for emergency doctors who use, or want to use, ultrasound in their clinical practice.

Online Medical Calculators

My favourite Medical Calculator – MDcalc.com has been upgraded. Always a bit tricky to keep up to date when completing a residency programme, but @grahamwalker has added some helpful new updates including: A new way to search on the site A bunch of labeling errors corrected for non-US colleagues (sorry for taking so long, rest [...]

Sickening grammar

In the world of medicine there has been a grammatical battle raging for what seems an eternity. “Who are the warring parties?”, you ask.

On one side are those that say “nauseating”, and on the the other, those that say “nauseous”.

Swine Flu in ICU

A timely follow up to ‘The Two Faces of Swine Flu’ is ‘Critical Care Services and 2009 H1N1 Influenza in Australia and New Zealand’. This ‘hot off the press’ paper by the ANZIC Influenza Investigators has just been published online in the NEJM.

Supratherapeutic INR

A 70 year-old man has presented to your emergency department to get his INR checked. He has been traveling around the country in a camper van for the past month and has had trouble getting regular blood tests.