Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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To assess the time to treatment for emergency department (ED) patients with critical hyperkalemia and to determine whether the timing of treatment was associated with clinical characteristics or electrocardiographic abnormalities. ⋯ Recognition of patients with severe hyperkalemia is challenging, and the initiation of appropriate therapy for this disorder is frequently delayed.
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As emergency physicians (EPs) and other noncardiologists incorporate bedside ultrasound (US) and bedside echocardiography (echo) into their practice, confusion has resulted from the differing imaging conventions used by cardiac and general imaging. The author discusses the origin of these differences, current cardiac imaging conventions, and controversies in emergency medicine (EM) regarding adoption of imaging conventions. Also discussed in detail are specific echo windows and experience with different approaches. While there is no perfect solution to merging the differing conventions, it is important that those performing and teaching bedside US and echo have a thorough understanding of the issues involved, and adopt a consistent approach.