The Case A 74-year-old male with a history of COPD arrived in the emergency department in respiratory distress. On physical examination, the patient was mildly tachypneic and had an oxygen saturation of 93% on a non-rebreather mask. On auscultation, the patient had wheezing and diminished air movement bilaterally. A supine chest radiograph (CXR) was obtained. A short time later, a radiologist called to confirm the presence of a “moderate sized right pneumothorax” (Figure …
Boring Question: Dizzy, need a few HINTS?
The dizzy patient. If you haven’t seen a patient with this chief complaint, you either don’t work in an emergency department or you work in an imaginary emergency medicine utopia! Admit it, when you pick up the chart that reads “chief complaint…dizzy”, you look around inconspicuously, slowly replace that chart in the rack… and run quickly become preoccupied with some fascinating task from… oh… somewhere over there! But why? It is not because we …
Boring Question: How useful are bowel sounds?
This month we launch the first post in a new series entitled “Boring Questions”. This column will focus on reviewing key literature around common questions that might be asked during a shift. – Teresa Chan (Managing Editor) Clinical Scenario: A 60-year-old female presented to the emergency department with a 24 hour history of lower abdominal pain. The pain had increased in intensity over the past day and was 7/10 on presentation. She has …
My Approach to Clearing C-Spines
I gave a talk the other day on clearing C-Spines, with Prezi linked here. As a disclaimer, this is my approach based on my clinical experience and from reading the literature – you should discuss this amongst your colleagues and review the literature to see if you reach the same conclusions. I would appreciate some comments – peer review if you will. Objectives of the Talk: Apply the Canadian C-Spine Rule and NEXUS criteria …