The Case… A 51-year-old man self-presents to your inner city ED one Friday evening; he’s complaining of mild abdominal pain and shortness of breath. A quick scan of his old notes at triage shows a background of Chronic Liver Disease secondary to alcohol. He does not appear in distress and is haemodynamically normal, so is […]
Paging the Cardiology Registrar: Acute Coronary Syndrome in the ED
Author: Yousif Ahmed (see bio below) Pondering Cardiology in the ED The first thing I would like to speak about is the relationship between Cardiology and the Emergency Department, and the unavoidable changes encountered over the last few years. A large proportion of patients with acute cardiac disorders first present to the ED. This is […]
Pondering Acid-Base: Making Sense of the Chaos!
So much pathology is reflected in the acid-base status of a patient. I’ve always found acid-base analysis challenging. I probably look at a couple of ABGs on most of my shifts in the ED, and up until now have scarcely ventured beyond the basics. I used to be able to say whether a patient was acidotic/alkalotic […]
Case 2: She Came Disguised as an Acute Abdomen…
Here is a presentation we put together on this case. We skim over a lot of the content, which is covered in greater detail in the written post. We used prezi.com for the ‘virtual canvas’ style presentation. The situation… It was a Saturday night in a small suburban ED. It was my first ever night […]
Do We Use A Pre-Intubation Checklist?
Back in April, I attended what has been dubbed ‘the greatest medical conference of all time’ by some of the online critical care community – SMACCGold. As expected, the experience was phenomenal. I found myself in an excited frenzy about the career I am lucky enough to find myself persuing – Emergency Medicine. Some of […]
Case 1: Who’s afraid of the big bad Wolff?
The Patient… 21 year old girl. Clean bill of health. 1 hour of unrelenting palpitations that stopped her being able to concentrate on writing her dissertation. On standing to get a cup of tea she feels very dizzy and like she is about to collapse. She lays down and calls for her boyfriend who phones an ambulance. 15 […]
