Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Comparative Study
The accuracy and completeness of data collected by prospective and retrospective methods.
To describe and test a model that compares the accuracy of data gathered prospectively versus retrospectively among adult emergency department patients admitted with chest pain. ⋯ Information obtained retrospectively from the abstraction of medical records is measurably less accurate than information obtained prospectively from research subjects. For certain items, more than half of the information is not available. This loss of information is related to the data types included in the study and by the assumptions that a researcher performing a retrospective study makes about implied versus explicitly stated responses. A model of information flow that incorporates the concepts of reliability and validity can be used to measure some of the loss of information that occurs at each step along the way from subject to clinician to medical record abstractor.
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Comparative Study Clinical Trial
A prospective comparison of supine chest radiography and bedside ultrasound for the diagnosis of traumatic pneumothorax.
Supine anteroposterior (AP) chest radiography may not detect the presence of a small or medium pneumothorax (PTX) in trauma patients. ⋯ With CT as the criterion standard, US is more sensitive than flat AP chest radiography in the diagnosis of traumatic PTX. Furthermore, US allowed sonologists to differentiate between small, medium, and large PTXs with good agreement with CT results.
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There has been little systematic study of emergency department (ED) patients with elevated blood pressure (BP) values. The authors sought to characterize ED patients with elevated BP values, assess presenting symptoms, and determine the prevalence of elevated BP after discharge. ⋯ Elevated BP is common among ED patients. African American patients are more likely than those of other ethnic groups to have greater BP values. The ED visit may be a good opportunity to identify patients with unrecognized or poorly controlled hypertension.
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Multicenter Study
What do emergency medicine learners want from their teachers? A multicenter focus group analysis.
To the best of the authors' knowledge, there are no reports describing what learners believe are good emergency medicine (EM) teaching practices. EM faculty developers are compromised by this lack of knowledge about what EM learners appreciate in their teachers. ⋯ Learners are sensitive to the constraints of the ED teaching environment, and have consistent views about good ED teaching practices. Among 14 general principles identified, "takes time to teach," "gives feedback," "tailors teaching to the learner," "uses teachable moments," and "has a good teacher attitude" were the most commonly reported.
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Comparative Study
Performance of the pediatric glasgow coma scale in children with blunt head trauma.
To compare the accuracy of a pediatric Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score in preverbal children with blunt head trauma with the standard GCS score in older children. ⋯ This pediatric GCS for children 2 years and younger compares favorably with the standard GCS in the evaluation of children with blunt head trauma. The pediatric GCS is particularly accurate in evaluating preverbal children with blunt head trauma with regard to the need for acute intervention.