You can’t interpret the results of a test without knowing the pretest probability. I am sure we have all heard the same lecture about screening tests. I am sure that we have all been surprised by the strange numbers that result from applying seemingly excellent tests in low risk populations. […]
Evidence Based Medicine
128 posts
It’s time for another deep dive into the medical literature, this time looking at the evidence for heparin (or any anticoagulant) in the setting of STEMI and PCI. I have previously outlined the evidence that indicates that heparin shouldn’t be used (is harmful) in unstable angina and NSTEMI. However, that […]
I have addressed the WOMAN trial before on First10EM. (Twice actually). Two mentions of a trial of TXA in postpartum hemorrhage might already seem a bit excessive for an emergency medicine blog. However, this trial has been discussed widely, and there seems to be some persistent confusion about the results […]
I recently wrote a post lamenting our lack of attention to distress in adult patients. There is so much we can do to improve the emergency department experience. I am tempted to say that we should treat our patients as we would want to be treated – a variation on […]
The management of burn blisters has always produced a lot of debate. My teaching was to leave the blisters alone, as deroofing them provides no benefit but increases pain. Recently I have noticed a push to have burns debrided. Both in Canada and New Zealand, I have had plastic surgeons […]
Until I moved to New Zealand, I honestly thought that orthostatic vitals signs were dead. I never bothered to cover the evidence, because I thought we had all agreed they were pretty useless. However, in my current hospital, the trainees seem to routinely perform orthostatics, and the admitting medicine doctors […]
Here is another collection of the articles I have found interesting in my reading from the last couple months. For this edition of the Research Roundup we have TB screening, exercise for concussion, conflict of interest, gestalt for ACS, and so much more. Podcast version over on BroomeDocs.
Clinician gestalt is one of those terms that people either love or hate. Lovers will point out how, almost every time that it is studied, gestalt is at least as accurate as validated clinical decision tools. Haters will lament the inclusion of gestalt in decision tools like the Well’s score, […]
This month, I was honoured to be invited back on Dr. Jeannette Wolfe’s incredible podcast “seX and whY”. We chatted about a couple papers that looked at sex differences in the management and outcomes of cardiac arrest and STEMI. This is a brief summary of the papers we discussed.