We’ve all heard the adage that practice makes perfect and to become an expert you must complete 10 000 hours of deliberate practice1. This involves motivated, goal oriented, purposeful practice with periodic feedback. Feedback is critical to allow for growth from where you currently are as a clinical clerk to where you want to be as future practicing physician2. Even with extensive deliberate practice, you will plateau without guidance and identification of areas …
The RULES of Patient Reassessments
You have seen the patient, collected a thorough history of pertinent positives and negatives, completed a comprehensive physical, generated a differential diagnosis, presented the case to your attending and ordered all the appropriate investigations. The next step in providing the best care in the emergency department is reassessing, reassessing, and reassessing. The Emergency Department is unique in that there is minimal continuity of care. Once the patient is discharged from the department you …
CanadiEM Frontline Primer – Clinical Debriefing (“Hot Debrief”)
Points to Focus upon “Hot Debriefs” are clinical debriefs that occur right after a high acuity situation. As a physician who has been redeployed to the ED there will be a vast amount of knowledge you will have to review and sift through. Running a debrief will allow you to review protocols and bounce ideas off members of the team who are involved in resuscitations on a daily basis. If you are running …
Debrief while it’s HOT
A 72 year old male is brought into the resuscitation room with respiratory distress. He has had two days of fever, cough, fatigue and shortness of breath with a known COVID-19 positive case in his household. His past medical history includes well-controlled hypertension and diabetes. His oxygen saturation on 6L nasal prongs is 88% and it is clear he is working hard to breathe. Intubation for oxygenation is apparent and you prepare your …