Annals of emergency medicine
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The osmol gap can help detect and manage those with toxic alcohol exposure, and it is altered by all alcohols including ethanol. The optimal correction for ethanol that would allow accurate detection of an alternative alcohol is unclear. ⋯ Our data show that the osmol gap is occasionally elevated absent ingestion of any alcohol, and using an ethanol correction coefficient of 4.6 produced a better clinical osmol gap input albeit still with some variation.
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To cover pediatric emergency physicians' off-hours, third-year pediatric residents in Israel are trained for unsupervised administration of emergency department (ED) dissociative and deep sedation. We assessed the frequency of critical sedation events associated with resident-performed sedations. ⋯ We observed a low frequency of critical sedation events in this large sample of dissociative and deep sedations performed by pediatric residents and pediatric emergency physicians. Our findings suggest that ED sedation by unsupervised, trained pediatric residents is a safe practice in Israel.