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In this study, investigators conducted a large, international, randomized controlled clinical trial (as a part of the CREATE trial) to determine the effect of glucose-insulin-potassium infusion on mortality in patients presenting with acute ST-segment elevation MI.
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With our aging population, emergency medicine practitioners increasingly will face the challenges of care for the elderly in the emergency department. A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that visits to U.S. EDs reached a record high in 2003 and attributes this rise to increased use by adults, especially those ages 65 and older. Elderly patients have higher risks for presenting to the ED.
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Public health officials from the California Department of Health Services have recognized epidemics of three types of Clostridium-associated diseases: wound botulism, necrotizing soft-tissue infections, and tetanus. These emerging infections and intoxications have been associated with the use of contaminated black tar heroin, an association known as "the clostridial connection."
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This is a retrospective study of consecutive head injury patients admitted to a single Level 1 trauma center.
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The purpose of this study was to evaluate the incidence of hip fractures presenting to the emergency department with negative initial radiographs.
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New drugs are constantly added to the market, many of them legal. Many new drugs with abuse potential are often called “legal highs,” as they are not banned by the federal government or states. Also, products may be labeled “not for human consumption” to avoid the label of illegal. The European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Addiction Europol says 41 new drugs entered the market in 2010. The legal status of the more familiar recreational substances has encouraged users to seek newer options that offer the advantages of being legal, less expensive, less contaminated with adulterants, more readily available, or with more desirable pharmacological effects.
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In one case that was eventually settled, an on-call specialist admitted making no effort to come in promptly, stating that traffic would be untenable for an hour because it was near the end of a Chicago Bulls playoff, recalls Tom Scaletta, MD, FAAEM, chair of the ED at Edward Hospital in Naperville, IL, and the emergency physician (EP) quoted the specialist verbatim to make it clear why a transfer was initiated.
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Your hospitals public relations staff may jump at the chance to advertise that patients can expect to see a doctor within 30 minutes in your ED, but claims such as this could easily backfire if a lawsuit involves this issue.
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Can the ED attending physician be held liable for a patients bad outcome even if he or she never saw the patient? In almost all cases, the answer is yes, at least to some degree, according to Kevin Klauer, DO, EJD, chief medical officer for Emergency Medicine Physicians in Canton, OH, and a member of the board of directors at Physicians Specialty Limited Risk Retention Group.
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If an ED claims to have certain services available, that creates a duty to provide them, according to Douglas S. Diekema, MD, MPH, an attending physician in the ED at Seattle Childrens Hospital and director of education for the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics at Seattle (WA) Childrens Research Institute.
