Welcome to the overwhelming 75th edition!
The LITFL Review is your regular and reliable source for the highest highlights, sneakiest sneak peaks and loudest shout-outs from the webbed world of emergency medicine and critical care. Each week the LITFL team casts the spotlight on the best and brightest from the blogosphere, the podcast video/audiosphere and the rest of the Web 2.0 social media jungle to find the most fantastic EM/CC FOAM (Free Open Access Meducation) around.
The Most Fair Dinkum Ripper Beaut of the Week
- This could go down the podcast of the year! Minh is brilliant as usual but this time he teams up with Dr James French and Dr Scott Weingart to discuss and debate the Clinical logistics :the science that turns strategy into reality. This podcast is all about making things happen, and making them safer, better, and resilient to error. You will listen to this more than once.
The LITFL Review Top Picks
- Is cervical spine X-ray necessary if there is a distracting injury? – Bottom line: The presence of a distracting injury has a negligible impact!
- A puzzling shoulder – you’re going to need a bit more than dogma to work this one out! Fascinating case TJ.
- Cliff puts us through our paces with a quick quiz on Hyperosmolar Therapy for Raised Intracranial Pressure. [Editor's note: too easy!]
- An Interview on Severe Trauma with Karim Brohi a true champion of the trauma, him and Scott discuss the in’s and out’s of traumatic arrest and massive transfusion, and where we are today with these concepts.
- Can We Place Neck Lines in Digoxin Toxicity? It seems you can….But give them Digibind first, it were the money shot is.
Academic Life in Emergency Medicine
- Tweet Pearls of the Week - something new, something different from the ALIEM team. Look forward to seeing how this develops!
- Diagnostic tests: Asking the right questions. Great post. Highlights Four Lessons of Diagnostic Testing as per David Newman:
- All tests are imperfect
- Context trumps results
- All tests have a threshold
- Likelihood ratios have it all
- Do you know your resuscitation room? Best be prepared and “Hope for the best, but anticipate the worst.”
- This post shows you where emergency medicine can take you in your career: The Crystal Cave – Naica, Mexico - David takes us through an awe-inspiring journey through the crystal cave and the challenges he faced providing safe medical care to himself and the documentary crew.
- Sean reviews the recently released guidelines on Lightning Injuries - there is not a great deal of high quality evidence in this area but the guidelines are a good summary of expert opinion.
- Hematoma Blocks for Reduction of Distal Radius Fractures. Looks simpler and quicker than a bier’s block, so who’s using it then?
- Excellent review on Hyperosmolar Therapy for Increased Intracranial Pressure (Review, NEJM) - well worth reading.
- Male in his 40′s with chest pressure – is it LVH with early repolarization or a troubling STEMI? Dr Smith helps you determine which is which in about 3 seconds.
- The Greatest Communicators - Rob brings our attention to one of the world’s greatest presenters Nancy Duarte and her talk at TED.
- PBF on TBL. Whats TBL? That’s right a new concept in education called team based learning – looks cool.
- Once again Ian shows he not afraid to to confront the big issues….and this one is a big issue! New AHPRA social media policy: we may be in big trouble here. and follows it up with another expert opinion from Philip Darbyshire on the proposed AHPRA guidelines. Its time for the FOAM community to stand up and show the actual benefits that social media and web 2.0 can have both on our education and the benefits to the patients… Rather than always producing guidelines that target the lowest common denominator.
- The lads head back to basics with a look at Gallbladder Ultrasound and Sneak Peak… at something special. What is it? Watch and you will be surprised!
- Paracetamol 2012: Less means more but without evidence. Glad to see the Aussie still using some evidence (and common sense) with this approach.
- EM – a risky business pt 1 – are you a diagnostician or a probablestician? What the…?
- Where is that needle? Are you sure? - Nice case on local anaesthetic toxicity, always a good idea to have intralipid on standby.
- Never Trust Your Patient (‘s Med List) – It not just us that contribute to medical errors, our patients are at fault as well!
- The new wonder drug for seizure termination does have a downside! Check out Krazy Keppra for more.
- Urological Complaints Part 1 – The Painful Scrotum - The how to podcast on assessing scrotal complaints in the paediatric patient.
- Burnout - although EM isn’t the highest at risk speciality for burnout, its a timely reminder to look out for yourself and your colleagues.
The LITFL Review Shout Out of the Week
- ECG of the Week is a relatively new blog out in the FOAMosphere by one of LITFL’s ECG guns, John Larkin. John serves up an ECG each week for us to discuss and critique. Check out these previous ECG cases from John:
ECG of the Week – 3rd September 2012 – Interpretation
ECG of the Week – 27th August 2012 – Interpretation
Twee Dee and Twitical Care
News from the Fastlane
- If you haven’t read the Michelle’s post on A Mortal Battle With Four Hour Medicine, then you’re missing out on a masterpiece, it covers everything from the battle we face with the four hour rule through to confronting the human error component that we face in emergency medicine.
- Bishan gives us an insight into Capacity Building In International Emergency Medicine - worth a look into!
The Final Words
- ” It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease than what sort of a disease a patient has”
- Sir William Osler
- ”It is the greatest inequality to try to make unequal things equal.”
- Aristotle
That’s it for now…
Hopefully this roundup of the world of electronic emergency medicine and critical care education for everyone helps you to deal with anyone, anything, anywhere at anytime for at least another week! If you’d like to suggest something for inclusion in the next edition of The LITFL Review, email kane AT lifeinthefastlane.com
LITFL Review EM/CC Educational Social Media Round Up
Emergency Medicine and Critical Care Blogroll
Emergency Medicine and Critical Care Podcasts
123Sonography.com — Academic Life in Emergency Medicine — Adventure Medicine— A Life at Risk — All LA Conference — Al Sacchetti’s Youtube — Bedside Ultrasound — Better in Emergency Medicine — Broome Docs — CCM-L.org — CLIC-EM — Critical Care Perspectives in EM — Dave on Airways —DrGDH — Dr Smith’s ECG Blog — ECG Academy — ECG Guru — ECG of the Week—ED Exam — EDTCC — EKG Videos — EM Basic — EM Core Content — EMCrit — Emergency Medical Abstracts —EMERJENCYWEBB –EmergencyLondon — Emergency Medicine Cases — Emergency Medicine Education — Emergency Medicine News — Emergency Medicine Ireland — Emergency Medicine Tutorials—Emergency Medicine Updates —Emergucate —EM Literature of Note — empem.org — EMpills — Emergency Physicians Monthly — EM Lyceum — EMProcedures — EMRAP — EMRAP: Educators’ Edition — EMRAP.TV — EM REMS — ER CAST — Free Emergency Medicine Talks — GMEP — Gmergency! — Greater Sydney Area HEMS — HQmeded.com — ICU Rounds — Impactednurse — Intensive Care Network —iTeachEM - keepcaring — Keeping Up With Emergency Medicine — KeeWeeDoc — KI Docs — LipheLongLurnERdok — MDaware — MD+ CALC — MedEDMasters — Medical Education Videos — Medicina d’urgenza — Medicine for the Outdoors — Micrognome — Movin’ Meat — Neurointensive Care — Pediatric EM Morsels — PEM ED — PEMLit — PHARM — Practical Evidence — Priceless Electrical Activity — Procedurettes — PulmCCM.org — Radiology Signs — Radiopaedia — Resus.com.au — Resus.ME — RESUS Room — Richard Winters’ Physician Leadership —ruralflyingdoc — SCANCRIT — SCCM Blogs — SCCM Podcast — SEMEP — SinaiEM — SinaiEM Ultrasound — SMART EM — SonoSpot — StEmylns — Takeokun — thebluntdissection—The Central Line — The Ember Project —The Emergency Medicine Resident Blog — The NNT — The Poison Review — The Sharp End — The Short Coat —The Skeptics Guide to Emergency Medicine — The Sono Cave - The Trauma Professional’s Blog — underneathEM.com — ToxTalk — TJdogma — Twin Cities Toxicology — Ultrarounds — UMEM Educational Pearls — Ultrasound Village
About Kane Guthrie
