All the content from the Blood & Clots series can be found here. CanMEDS Roles addressed: Medical Expert, Collaborator Case Description You are assessing a 55-year-old male patient in the emergency room who is presenting with headache, fever, and neck stiffness. He needs a lumbar puncture to rule out bacterial meningitis. However, he is on apixaban 5 mg twice daily for atrial fibrillation with a CHADS65 score of 1 point for hypertension. His …
Teaching That Counts: 7 Tips for Filling Out EPA Assessments
View PostCAEP FEI | A Peer-Reviewed Instructional Video is as Effective as a Standard Recorded Didactic Lecture in Medical Trainees Performing Chest Tube Insertion: A Randomized Control Trial
Mark is a first year emergency medicine resident waiting in the trauma bay for an incoming thirty year old male with a penetrating stab wound to the chest. He wonders if he will have to insert a chest tube for this patient. It has been a long time since he did one in medical school and his memory of the steps is fuzzy. He wishes there was a tool to help him learn …
The CanadiEM Infographic Team: Now Accepting Applications
Are you a medical student or resident with an interest in emergency medicine and/or infographics? Are you looking to gain some marketable skills in graphic design? If so, you’ll be happy to hear that CanadiEM is recruiting new members for the infographic team. How did it start? Our initial infographic team consisted of three members in 2015, who worked on a variety of projects. Since then, this has expanded to approximately 12 members …
Designing a QI project – a Comparison of Quality Improvement and Traditional Research Paradigms
You are attending your local ED monthly rounds where a journal club is being held discussing a Quality Improvement (QI) published paper. As the rounds progress, your presenter critiques the article and discusses perceived weaknesses including a small sample size, lack of randomization and blinding, and lists many different possible biases in this project. You reflect back on your previous journal clubs and wonder whether it makes sense to apply a research-style critical …
Pacemaker Essentials: Complications You Must Know
Like all good trilogies, this too, must end. After a long hiatus due to budget negotiations, studio restrictions, and transitioning into staff-hood, it is time we discuss some of the complications that you may see from our pesky pacemakers in the emergency department (ED). Before we begin, please review the prequels if you haven’t already. Check out Part 1, “Pacemaker Essentials: What we need to know in the ED” and Part 2, “Pacemaker …