All the content from the Blood & Clots series can be found here. CanMEDS Roles addressed: Medical expert, Communicator Case Description You are working a shift in your local emergency department and an 89-year-old female is brought in with a 2-day history of melena stool. The patient has a history of atrial fibrillation and uncontrolled hypertension despite being on an ACE-inhibitor. Her initial bloodwork shows a hemoglobin of 102 g/L (no baseline provided), …
Blood & Clots Series: Is Fecal Occult Blood Testing helpful in deciding whether it’s safe to prescribe anticoagulants?
All the content from the Blood & Clots series can be found here. CanMEDS Roles addressed: Expert, Leader Case Description You have just diagnosed a 55-year-old male with an acute proximal deep vein thrombosis in the emergency department. The event was unprovoked, and he has symptoms of leg swelling and pain. He is otherwise healthy and takes no regular medications. He has no symptoms suggestive of PE, and his blood pressure and oxygen …
Tiny Tip: “STAB” as a Tool for Diagnosing Occipital Neuralgia
Approaching the complaint Occipital neuralgia is a headache disorder characterized by shooting neuropathic pain secondary to greater or lesser occipital nerve pathology. The diagnosis should be considered in a patient presenting with the following: Unilateral or bilateral pain originating at the skull base Sharp, shooting, lancinating, or burning pain that radiates forward along the dermatomes supplied by the greater or lesser occipital nerves Paroxysmal pain lasting seconds to minutes Dysesthesia or allodynia over …
CanadiEM MVP Infographic Series – Comparison of PECARN, CATCH, and CHALICE Rules
Editor’s Note – This post is one in a series of articles detailing “must know” papers in emergency medicine. Each post will summarize the findings of one study identified by the research of Bazak et al.1 Introducing the CanadiEM MVP Series Evidence-based practice is critical for delivering quality emergency care, but with such a broad specialty identifying and recalling high-yield studies can be challenging. This is especially true for new EM learners, who …
Describing a Rash
When describing a rash there are many characteristics to make note of, including its primary morphology, secondary morphology, demarcation, colour, configuration, and distribution. The focus or this article will be on primary morphology. Reasoning through the first blush Within primary morphology you can stratify a lesion based on whether it is flat or elevated. If the lesion is flat, then it will be either a macule or patch. A macule is a flat lesion …