Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog
Emergency Medicine education blog
Ventricular fibrillation and sudden death triggered by a blunt, non penetrating, and often innocent appearing unintentional blow to the chest without damage to the ribs, sternum, or heart (and in the absence of underlying cardiovascular disease) constitute an event know as commotio cordis, which translates from the Latin as agitation of the heart.
With ED overcrowding hitting record levels and budgets cuts carrying on from the last decade. Our intoxicated patients can’t handle the concept of waiting room medicine and prefer the monitored couch approach in the comfort of their home.
If you are new to intensiveland and find yourself bamboozled by all the numbers, indices and machines that go ping. There is only one reference you need turn to… Titled “Alice in intensiveland. Being an essay on nonsense and common sense in the ICU, after the manner of Lewis Carroll.”
It may be idealistic, but the UCEM firmly believes that in the future the management of emergency patients should be outsourced and entirely orchestrated from offshore. Hands-off-medicine, teleconferencing, the iPhone and video assisted robotic technology (VART) will assist in the management of critically ill patients within the waiting room.
I’m a big fan of TED and strongly suggest you subscribe to their video podcasts if you don’t already. Rory Sutherland is an advertising whizz. He argues that adding intangible or perceived value to things we already have is perhaps no bad thing and perhaps may be the only alternative to a world of unsustainable consumerism.
A 36 year old skier is brought into your ED by helicopter paramedics. He has been found unconscious in a wooded area of the ski field. On arrival his pulse rate is 55 beats per minute in atrial fibrillation, his blood pressure is 110/70 and his GCS is 12. Question a. Describe your differential diagnosis. [...]
A two year old girl presents with her parents after running into the edge of a coffee table. She sustained a 4cm frontal scalp laceration above her left eyebrow. There was no loss of consciousness and no other apparent injury. Question a. Discuss the anaesthetic options in managing this child. (100%) Answer Answer and Interpretation [...]
