Just the thing for the faint of heart!

Just the thing for the faint of heart!

As Emergency Physicians, we pride ourselves on taking care of critically ill, undifferentiated patients. As technology as advanced, we’ve been able to add more and more tools to our arsenal to help guide the management of these patients. One such tool is cardiac ultrasonography. It is able to give us dynamic information about the patient, rule out life threatening pathology such as tamponade, and even help guide resuscitation in cardiac arrest. All of this, however hinges on the physician having the knowledge and skills to employ this in our fast paced environment. Are your skills up to snuff? Find out after the jump!

Read More

Not Just Sound... It's ULTRAsound!

Not Just Sound... It's ULTRAsound!

Over recent years, ultrasound has permeated our specialty and become a core component in how we provide patient care. It allows us to obtain real time information and make clinical decisions, all while avoiding the harms of more traditional imaging techniques.

But what exactly is going on behind the scenes here?  Take a look at our educational pages dedicated to ultrasound physics and knobology

Read More

Interpretation of Cervical Spine CT's

Interpretation of Cervical Spine CT's

It's 6pm in the ED on a sunny summer afternoon- you're working as a single coverage physician at a level 3 trauma center.  You are noticing an uptrend in the trauma patients being brought in over the past few hours. While log rolling yet another patient, an EMS provider tells you that they have been making runs nonstop- all of the hospitals downtown are overloaded, and it doesn't look like it will slow down anytime soon. Your modest trauma bay is already full, and you're starting to sweat about the state of the department- there are 4 patients in the pod you haven't even seen yet, 2 with abnormal vital signs.

Read More