The “pink lady” or “GI cocktail”, a combination of an antacid and viscous lidocaine, is both much loved and much hated in emergency medicine. Some practitioners use it as a matter of routine. Others warn against it, for fear that it can lead to misdiagnosis in the setting of MI. […]
EM literature (critical appraisals)
78 posts
Status epilepticus is associated with a high degree of morbidity and mortality. Approximately ⅓ of patients have long term neurologic sequela, and mortality is 3-5%. (Chin 2006; Raspall-Chaure 2006) First line treatment is with benzodiazepines, but benzos will fail approximately 30-40% of the time. (Appleton 2008) Therefore, an effective second […]
In the first edition of the research roundup for 2019 we are going to cover pediatric head injury, oral antibiotics for complicated orthopedic infections, shaving eyebrows, bad science in the New England Journal of Medicine, a decision rule for opioid overdose, shark bites, heparin for ACS, cardiac monitoring in syncope, […]
Last year, the FDA granted andexanet alfa an accelerated approval as a reversal agent for factor Xa inhibitors, but based that decision on a complete lack of useable science. This decision is almost identical to the approval of idarucizumab, a debacle I have discussed previously. (At that time, I was […]
Complex orthopedic infections are traditionally managed with long courses of intravenous antibiotics. I have previously discussed, in the context of skin and soft tissue infection, that as long as the antibiotic is absorbed through the GI tract, there is no physiologic reason to think that IV antibiotics would be superior […]