The American journal of emergency medicine
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Impacted esophageal foreign bodies typically first present to the emergency department, with coins being most common in children and food boluses most common in adults. Controversy exists regarding the best treatment options in these cases. We report two cases, one pediatric and one adult, where the use of a novel substitute Hurst dilator constructed of materials regularly found in all EDs was successfully used to treat impacted esophageal foreign bodies.
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Cauda equina syndrome (CES) may be a devastating disease with the potential for significant patient morbidity. It is essential for emergency clinicians to be aware of how to effectively diagnose and manage this condition. ⋯ Cauda equina syndrome can be a difficult diagnosis. However, knowledge of the history and examination findings, imaging, and treatment can assist the emergency clinician in optimizing management of this condition.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
A checklist manifesto: Can a checklist of common diagnoses improve accuracy in ECG interpretation?
To determine whether a checklist of possible etiologies for syncope provided alongside ECGs helps Emergency Medicine (EM) residents identify ECG patterns more accurately than with ECGs alone. ⋯ Using a checklist with common syncope-related pathology when interpreting an ECG for a patient with clinical scenario of syncope may improve residents' ability to recognize some clinically important pathologies; however it could lead to increased interpretation and suspicion of pathology that is not present.
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Case Reports
Ultrasound-guided analgesic injection for acromioclavicular joint separation in the emergency department.
We present the first documented case of an emergency clinician treating the pain of an acute Acromioclavicular (AC) joint separation through ultrasound (US) guided injection of an anesthetic agent. A 41 year old male presented with an acute traumatic grade III AC joint separation after falling off a scooter, and his pain was not significantly improved with oral medication. ⋯ In orthopedics and physiatry literature, US guided AC joint injections have been shown to be far more efficacious than landmark guided AC joint injections, yet this is the first known case documenting injection in the Emergency Department (ED). The superficial location of the AC joint, its ease of identification by US, and the rapid onset of analgesia by intra-articular injection makes the US-guided anesthetic injection of the AC joint an ideal tool to incorporate into a multimodal approach to pain management in AC joint separations.