Everything in aviation we know because someone somewhere died… We have purchased, at great cost, lessons literally bought with blood… We cannot have the moral failure of forgetting these lessons and have to relearn them.” Sully Sullenberger Pilot of Flight 1549, ‘The Miracle on the Hudson’ All frontline healthcare warriors will bear scars from emotionally […]
The ‘Deliberate Practice Mindset’
Performance improvement is an interest of mine. I have previously blogged and podcasted about the strategies I employed to lift my game (from rock-bottom) when working in an extreme environment – a South African township ED. I first became aware of ‘deliberate practice’ after reading an excellent St. Emlyn’s post last year. I had never encountered […]
EMJ Blog – What do Emergency Medicine and Donald J. Trump have in common?
In the aftermath of Donald J. Trump’s US Presidential election victory, I expressed outrage via my keyboard. That led to the creation of a blog post that’s now published on the EMJ Blog. In the post, I use the Trump phenomenon as a vehicle for discussing the alarming lack of basic human decency that I witness on an almost […]
EMJ Blog – Nuances of Neurogenic Shock
In my latest EMJ blog, I’ve reviewed an interesting recent paper from Taylor et al that explores some of the finer details of neurogenic shock – a rare, but potentially lethal complication of spinal trauma. Click here for the post. Here is the original paper: Presentation of neurogenic shock within the emergency department. Matthew Pritam Taylor, Paul […]
EMJ Blog – How Junior Doctors Think: A Guide for Reflective Practice
A very interesting paper has been published in the EMJ recently (June 2016), qualitatively exploring the subject of metacognition in UK-based junior doctors. It’s a must-read. I’ve blogged about it. I’d love to hear reader’s thoughts via the comments section (either on here or the EMJ blog site). The original paper: Clinical reasoning of junior doctors in […]
EMJ blog – ECG Marksmanship: Posterior Wellen’s Syndrome
You can check out my latest piece for the EMJ blog by clicking here. I take a look at a very interesting EMJ paper published online recently: Driver BE, Shroff GR, Smith S. Posterior reperfusion T-waves: Wellens’ syndrome of the posterior wall. Emerg Med J. 2016 Jul 29. Tellingly, one of the authors is Dr. Smith, author […]
EMJ Blog – Should More Emergency Physicians be ‘Piloting British Airways’? – The Musings of a Trainee
I’ve written a second piece for the Emergency Medicine Journal Blog which I’m very excited about. The post tackles a fairly controversial issue in the UK – the role of EM doctors in emergency airway management. The ‘ED-RSI’ landscape over here is very different to Australia and the US, and my hope is that the piece will stimulate some positive […]