Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA
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Emerg Med Australas · Aug 2017
Consistency of total body surface area assessment in severe burns: Implications for practice.
Paediatric burn injury is common and often serious. Injuries occur across New South Wales (NSW), with specialised treatment provided in a centralised burns unit. Early management prior to transfer is essential but variation is seen. ⋯ Our review demonstrated significant differences between the TBSA assessment of referring hospitals and the NSW Burns Unit. These inconsistencies may have resulted in children receiving treatment and transport not indicated based on accurate TBSA assessment. Potentially unnecessary transfers have implications for the displacement of children and families but also impact overall health costs and resource availability.
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Emerg Med Australas · Aug 2017
Intensive care unit admissions and ventilation support in infants with bronchiolitis.
To describe the rate of intensive care unit (ICU) admission, type of ventilation support provided and risk factors for ICU admission in infants with bronchiolitis. ⋯ Admission to ICU is an uncommon occurrence in infants admitted with bronchiolitis, but more common in infants with comorbidities and prematurity. The majority are managed with non-invasive ventilation, with increasing use of HFNC.
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Emerg Med Australas · Aug 2017
Capturing the 'art' of emergency medicine: Does film foster reflection in medical students?
Integrating arts and humanities-based pedagogy into curricula is of growing interest among medical educators, particularly how it promotes reflection and empathy. Our aim was to explore whether a 2.50 min film titled 'The Art of the ED' stimulated reflective learning processes in a group of first year medical students. ⋯ These findings highlight how visual methodologies (like film) create a safe, non-threatening space to access, experience and process emotion around their perceptions towards EM, and to anticipate and emotionally prepare for their impending clinical experience in the ED. These data support the use of visual methodologies to foster reflective processes that assist medical students to integrate the 'art' of EM, and the development and commitment of core doctoring values of empathy, service and respect for patients.
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Emerg Med Australas · Aug 2017
The chances that an emergency physician will demonstrate three abdominal aortic aneurysms by ultrasound in the emergency department for credentialing: A statistician's view.
The Australasian College for Emergency Medicine requires 15 proctored examinations of the aorta for credentialing in ultrasonography for abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). Furthermore, at least three examinations need to be positive for an aneurysm. In the ED where AAA presentations are sporadic, what are the chances that an emergency physician (EP) will have the opportunity to demonstrate three AAAs in the next 12 months? The probability of an event occurring within a given time-frame can be modelled by the Poisson distribution. ⋯ For an EP to be almost 100% certain of meeting the credentialing requirements, he/she would need almost 10 proctored ultrasound cases of AAA to be available within his/her shifts during the year. The Poisson distribution has enabled us to model the probability of encountering a given number of AAA in the ED. Analysis such as this may help rationalise the numbers needed for credentialing.