Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Cutaneous wound healing in adults invariably results in scarring; however, there are few scales to quantify the degree of such scarring. The authors developed a histomorphologic scale for quantifying scarring after cutaneous burn injury. ⋯ A new reliable histomorphologic method for quantifying and scoring cutaneous scars is described together with a reliable scar VAS. However, these two scales are not highly correlated.
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To assess how emergency medicine (EM) residents perform medical record documentation, and how well they comply with Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) Medicare charting guidelines. In addition, the study investigated their abilities and confidence with billing and coding of patient care visits and procedures performed in the emergency department (ED). Finally, the study assessed their exposure to both online faculty instruction and formal didactic experience with this component of their curriculum. ⋯ The handwritten chart is the most widely used method of patient care documentation, either entirely or as a component of a templated chart. Most EM residents do not document their faculty's participation in the care of patients. This could lead to overestimation of faculty noncompliance with HCFA billing guidelines. Emergency medicine residents are not confident in their knowledge of medical record documentation and coding procedures, nor of charges for services rendered in the ED.
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Comparative Study
Calcium and digoxin vs. calcium alone for severe verapamil toxicity.
Calcium chloride (CaCl(2)) is ineffective in severe calcium channel antagonist overdoses. Digoxin increases intracellular calcium by inhibiting the sodium-potassium adenosine triphosphatase enzymes. ⋯ In a model of severe verapamil toxicity, digoxin plus calcium raised SBP and did not result in ventricular arrhythmias when compared with calcium alone.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Two-thumb vs. two-finger chest compression in an infant model of prolonged cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
Previous experiments in the authors' swine lab have shown that cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) using two-thumb chest compression with a thoracic squeeze (TT) produces higher blood and perfusion pressures when compared with the American Heart Association (AHA)-recommended two-finger (TF) technique. Previous studies were of short duration (1-2 minutes). The hypothesis was that TT would be superior to TF during prolonged CPR in an infant model. ⋯ In this infant CPR model, TT chest compression produced higher MAP, SBP, DBP, and PP when compared with TF chest compression during a clinically relevant duration of prolonged CPR.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
The efficacy of nebulized racemic epinephrine in children with acute asthma: a randomized, double-blind trial.
Recent work in bronchiolitis has demonstrated a significant clinical improvement in children treated with epinephrine over nebulized salbutamol. The objective of this study was to determine whether nebulized epinephrine, as compared with nebulized salbutamol, causes a greater clinical improvement in children with acute asthma. ⋯ There is no significant clinical benefit of nebulized epinephrine over salbutamol in children 1-17 years old with mild to moderate acute asthma. Salbutamol remains the treatment of choice in children with known asthma.