Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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A substantial number of emergency medicine providers are publishing stories and other creative expressions related to their medical experiences. This is a systematic review of such publications, introduces the term "emergency medicine narratives" to describe such pieces, and proposes a framework to classify the various forms of expression. Specifically, six genres of emergency medicine narratives are discussed: medical autobiography, clinical narratives, creative narratives, out-of-hospital narratives, lay exposition, and photojournalism. This review explores the utility of these narratives and the role they play within the field of emergency medicine, provides a bibliography of emergency narratives, and suggests future questions that might be addressed regarding this growing phenomenon in the field of emergency medicine.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Ultrasound image quality comparison between an inexpensive handheld emergency department (ED) ultrasound machine and a large mobile ED ultrasound system.
Questions have been raised regarding image quality (IQ) provided by portable ultrasound (US) machines. ⋯ A statistically significant difference was seen between GE 400 and SonoSite in IQ and RES, but not DET.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
A randomized, controlled trial comparing long-term cosmetic outcomes of traumatic pediatric lacerations repaired with absorbable plain gut versus nonabsorbable nylon sutures.
To show that the use of absorbable sutures in pediatric traumatic lacerations affords good long-term cosmesis and no increase in complications (infection, dehiscence rates, and need for surgical scar revision) when compared with wounds sutured with nonabsorbable sutures. ⋯ The use of plain catgut absorbable sutures in the repair of traumatic lacerations in children appears to be an acceptable alternative to nonabsorbable sutures because the long-term cosmetic outcome seems to be at least as good. In this study, plain gut suture material seemed to provide slightly better cosmesis. In addition, no difference was found in the rate of dehiscence or infection between the groups.