Evidence based medicine (EBM) allows us to deliver the best care to our patients and understanding the concepts involved is crucial.
Over the last 18 month we've been building an online course to give people a sound understanding of EBM and we thought we'd give you a free taster of what it's all about.
Have a listen to one of our episodes here on statistics and if you want to find out more have a read below about the full course at www.CriticalAppraisalLowdown.co.uk
Enjoy!
For this episode we’ve been lucky enough to catch a number of the speakers from the traumacare conference.
First up, conference organiser Caroline Leech (EM + PHEM consultant) gave us a few minutes of her time to talk about the latest major trauma key performance indicators from NICE.
Nicola Curry (Consultant Haematologist) spoke about transfusion in trauma and the use of massive haemorrhage protocols. Importantly, she covers the evidence behind the current strategies and where future research opportunities exist.
Stuart Reid (EM + PHEM consultant) covered the ways of optimising timely transfer of major trauma patients. This had an inter-hospital focus, but there were certainly some elements which can be applied to a primary patient transfer.
David Raven (EM consultant) provided an update to the ongoing work with the HECTOR project. We’ve previously heard about their amazing course but this time he was able to let us know about the “silver trauma safety net” which is being used by the ambulance service in the West Midlands. This aims to provide appropriate recognition and triage of trauma in the elderly population.
Finally, Elspeth Hulse (anaesthetic SpR) gave us a timely reminder about the identification and management of organophosphate poisoning - really useful from both and EM and PHEM perspective.
Thanks again to Caroline for the invite to the conference and keep and eye out for a special podcast in the next few weeks where Simon Carley will be running through his top 10 trauma papers of 2017/18 (we were going to try and condense it, but there was way too much good stuff!)
Enjoy!
In this episode Rob takes us through a case he saw recently that brought about some invaluable learning.
We're not going to give you anymore clues than that!
Enjoy!
Welcome back to April's papers of the month.
We've got 3 papers this month that look to challenge our work up strategies for the critically unwell. First up we look at a paper on the Ottawa subarachnoid haemorrhage rule, specifically considering if we can decrease scanning in patients with a suspected SAH and what application of the rule might mean for our practice.
Next up we look at a paper that might shine some real doubt on the use of IO access in our patients in cardiac arrest.
Lastly we look at a validation paper for the PERC rule for those patients with a suspected pulmonary embolus and this paper brings about some interesting points on external validity
Once again we'd really encourage you to have a look at the papers yourself and we've love to hear any thoughts or feedback you have.
Enjoy!
Simon & Rob
References
Validation of the Ottawa Subarachnoid Hemorrhage Rule in patients with acute headache. Perry JJ. CMAJ. 2017
Intraosseous Vascular Access Is Associated With Lower Survival and Neurologic Recovery Among Patients With Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest. Kawano T. Ann Emerg Med. 2018
Effect of the Pulmonary Embolism Rule-Out Criteria on Subsequent Thromboembolic Events Among Low-Risk Emergency Department Patients: The PROPER Randomized Clinical Trial. Freund Y. JAMA. 2018
CORE EM; IO in Cardiac Arrest