Emergency medicine clinics of North America
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Blunt arterial injury provides a tremendous challenge to the emergency physician and traumatologist. The overall incidence of these injuries, even with more modern and aggressive screening, is low. Often, they are clinically occult on initial presentation, and untreated, they frequently result in devastating consequences. Great potential exists, however, for averting these deadly consequences by recognizing patterns of injury, prompting expedient diagnosis by rapidly obtaining the appropriate diagnostic study and providing opportunity for specific therapy under the direction of the trauma surgeon.
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TAD and AAA are two of the highest risk disease entities in emergency medicine. Emergency physicians should be vigilant in their approach to patients who have symptoms compatible with acute aortic disease. ⋯ Emergency physicians cannot diagnose every case of acute aortic disease; what they can do is practice with a sound understanding of risk management principles and consider these diagnoses in all patients with chest, back, or abdominal pain. Ultimately, this strategy would provide protection for the patient and the physician.
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Emerg. Med. Clin. North Am. · Nov 2004
ReviewMyocarditis: emergency department recognition and management.
Myocarditis is an acute inflammatory syndrome involving the heart and related structures. In many instances, the presentation is obvious, and appropriate treatment and disposition follow accordingly. In other situations, patients present with viral illness of the respiratory or gastrointestinal tracts (or both) or nonspecific symptoms such as fatigue and weakness,leading the clinician astray. Management is largely supportive, including aggressive cardiorespiratory support.
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A neonate presenting to the emergency department can present a challenge to even the most experienced clinician. This article has focused on four deceiving and potentially devastating neonatal diseases. 1. Neonatal herpes is a potentially devastating illness without pathognomonic signs or symptoms. ⋯ Therapy is relatively straightforward and focused on resuscitation followed by prevention of catabolism and correction of specifically identified abnormalities. Although these disorders are relatively uncommon, prompt diagnosis and therapy can lead to a decrease in morbidity and mortality. The key is to maintain a high index of suspicion.
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Emergency medicine physicians can avoid missed traumatic intra-abdominal injury by adopting a paradigm for patient evaluation that recognizes the patterns of injury associated with pathology, the importance of positive and negative physical findings, and the limitations of diagnostic studies. The burden of avoiding missed traumatic injuries does not rest with emergency medicine physicians alone, however. A missed diagnosis may be the result of a medical error involving multiple systems and individuals. Ultimately, decreasing the incidence of missed traumatic injury is an opportunity for quality improvement for all practitioners involved in the care of patients with trauma.