Category: Uncategorized

In November, we posted these cases and discussion stem to the blog discussion forum and got a number of insightful comments regarding the use of push dose vasopressors in the prehospital environment.  This commentary is summarized here. The term “Push dose pressors” (also known as Bolus-Dose Vasopressors) refers to the intravenous administration of small, discrete

Article: Harcke, H. T., Curtin, R. N., Harty, M. P., Gould, S. W., Vershvovsky, J., Collins, G. L., & Murphy, S. (2020). Tibial Intraosseous Insertion in Pediatric Emergency Care: A Review Based upon Postmortem Computed Tomography. Prehospital Emergency Care, 1-7.  Background:  The most commonly used (and recommended) site for intraosseous (IO) access in pediatric patients is

Nightscales, R et al. “Mortality in Patients with Psychogenic Nonepileptic Seizures.” Neurology 95.6 (2020): e643–e652. Neurology.  Background Caring for psychogenic nonepileptic seizure (PNES) patients (the condition formerly known as “pseudoseizures”) in the emergency setting can be exceedingly difficult and frustrating.  This is understandable because discerning between true seizure activity and a psychogenic event leads to drastically different treatment

By Louis Fornage, MD Over the last 10 years, advances in out of hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) have resulted in significant improvements in patient outcome. While this has definitely been the case for adult cardiac arrest, this unfortunately has not translated to improved outcomes in pediatric cardiac arrest, which continues lag behind. Even in cases

The 2020 EMS LLSA Articles and test have been released by ABEM. The EMS MEd team & NAEMSP Education committee are happy to bring to you concise summaries of all 14 articles via the Article Bites section of the blog. Click on the article link to be connected to the article summary. 1. Jarvis JL,

Article:  Spaite DW, Hu C, Bobrow BJ, Chikani V, Barnhart B, Gaither JB, et al.The effect of combined out-of-hospital hypotension and hypoxia on mortality in major traumatic brain injury. Ann Emerg Med 2017 Jan;69(1):62-72. Background:  Hypoxia and hypotension are known to independently increase mortality in patients with severe traumatic brain injury, but their combined effects

Article: Kupas, D. F., Melnychuk, E. M., & Young, A. J. (2016). Glasgow coma scale motor component (“patient does not follow commands”) performs similarly to total glasgow coma scale in predicting severe injury in trauma patients. Annals of emergency medicine, 68(6), 744-750.  Background: Trauma patients are often triaged to trauma centers based on their GCS.  Indeed, a

Article:  Jarvis, J. L., Gonzales, J., Johns, D., & Sager, L. (2018). Implementation of a clinical bundle to reduce out-of-hospital peri-intubation hypoxia. Annals of Emergency Medicine, 72(3), 272-279.  Background:  Peri-intubation hypoxia is an important quality measure for EMS agencies performing rapid sequence intubation, as it is associated with poor patient outcomes including peri-intubation cardiac arrest and death

Article: Peter E. Fischer, Debra G. Perina, Theodore R. Delbridge, Mary E. Fallat, Jeffrey P. Salomone, Jimm Dodd, Eileen M. Bulger & Mark L. Gestring (2018) Spinal Motion Restriction in the Trauma Patient – A Joint Position Statement, Prehospital Emergency Care, 22:6, 659-661, DOI: 10.1080/10903127.2018.1481476 Podcast on this position statement: https://pecpodcast.libsyn.com/prehospital-emergency-care-podcast-24 Background:  Immobilization of a

Article:  Bosson, N., Sanko, S., Stickney, R. E., Niemann, J., French, W. J., Jollis, J. G., … & Koenig, W. (2017). Causes of prehospital misinterpretations of ST elevation myocardial infarction. Prehospital Emergency Care, 21(3), 283-290.  Background:   Prehospital STEMI identification plays a critical role in ensuring appropriate destination decision and shortening times to reperfusion for patients with acute