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Time Management in the ED: Is there such a thing?

In All Posts, Education & Quality Improvement by Rob WoodsLeave a Comment

Being efficient with your time during an ED shift is an important skill to develop. Not only will this help you (and your staff) keep up with the demands of a busy emergency department, but as a learner this will also provide you with the opportunity to see more cases and have more time for teaching and feedback. This blog post will outline some tips and tricks for managing your time effectively throughout …

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Disposition Decisions: What do we need to consider and why?

In All Posts, Education & Quality Improvement by Rob WoodsLeave a Comment

Being able to think patients through to their final disposition can be a challenging skill at the clerkship level. However, a good clinician should start thinking about a patient’s disposition as soon as they pick up the chart. Before you take a patient’s history, look at the triage note and start to think through your differential diagnosis, diagnostic workup, therapeutic management, and disposition plan. What are the “most common” and “cannot miss” diagnoses …

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Practicing emergency medicine in New Zealand: A Canadian’s perspective

In Featured by Rob Woods7 Comments

Dr. Rob Woods is a well known Emergency Physician and program director for the FRCPC Emergency Medicine Program at the University of Saskatchewan, who recently practiced emergency medicine in New Zealand on a one-year sabbatical. Here, he provides us some with answers to many questions he has been getting, insights into the country, lifestyle and medicine from abroad.  Why did you go to New Zealand? We also thought it would be great for …

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Approach to Geriatric Patients: Functional Assessment in the ED

In Medical Concepts by Rob Woods18 Comments

The wave of baby boomers is coming to an ED near you and it’s time to get prepared [1]. ED overcrowding does not seem to be going away anytime soon, and anything we can do to get these patients back to the community is better for everyone. While not all 80 year olds have multiple medical problems (we have a spectrum bias based on what we see at work) it does not take many …

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#TipsforEMexams: Dr. Rob Woods shares his EM Exam Tips

In Mentorship, TipsForEMExams by Rob WoodsLeave a Comment

#TipsforEMexam Series In the last post of this series, I (Dr. Teresa Chan) nominated a few people to blog about their EM exam tips for final year residents sitting their exams this year.  Dr. Nadim Lalani of USask already added his tips in the comments, but I also formally nominated Drs. Rob Woods (#USask) & Heather Murray (#QueensU). I now present you our first respondent: *** Name:  Rob Woods, Survivor of the 2007 RC emergency …