The foot is divided into three anatomic regions: the forefoot, made up of the fourteen phalanges and the five metatarsals; the midfoot, made up of the navicular, the cuboid, and the three cuneiforms (the medial, the middle, and the lateral); and the hindfoot, made up the talus and calcaneus.
Dermatologic complaints are common presentations in the emergency department and the emergency physician should have a working knowledge of the most common of these complaints.
Gastrointestinal (GI) bleed. Cancer. Myocardial infarction (MI). Constipation. These are just some of the conditions that could present as abdominal pain in ED patients.
It's a common source of frustration in many EDs: leaving patients in the waiting room until a "specialty" room is available, or placing the patient in a room that doesn't have the right equipment, which delays care. That's why many EDs are investing in mobile workstations on laptops or wheeled carts.
The minute you learn that accreditation surveyors are on site, you probably have a "wish list" of tasks that should be done immediately. At Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, OR, ED nurses created checklists for technicians, nurses, physicians, and health unit coordinators to use.
Long waits are the most common cause of patient complaints in many EDs, so why not give patients a special "thank you" when wait times are long?
When a Spanish-speaking man approached ED nurses at Methodist LeBonheur Healthcare in Memphis, TN, pointing to his chest, nurses immediately called for translation services, but the interpreter was tied up with another patient elsewhere in the hospital.
Many emergency nurses routinely use the color-coded Broselow Pediatric Emergency tape to obtain medication dosages for pediatric patients who can't be weighed.
When ED patients watched an educational video or read a brochure about pain assessment, the patient's self-report of pain often was lower compared to previous self-reports, says this study from St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center in Toledo, OH.
