Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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When ingested by children, small quantities of beta-adrenergic antagonists (BAA) are described as dangerous and even potentially lethal ("one pill can kill"). We characterize demographics, clinical characteristics, and the rate of serious outcomes among pediatric patients with reported BAA ingestions. ⋯ Reported BAA ingestions in this multiyear national pediatric cohort caused infrequent toxicity, and no fatalities resulted from an unintentional ingestion. The frequency of bradycardia, hypotension, and hypoglycemia were low. While severely poisoned patients require aggressive treatment, 8.8% of patients were admitted to a critical care unit despite having no or mild effects, which suggests an opportunity to reduce resource utilization.
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There are wide variations in the gender makeup of speakers at national pediatric emergency medicine (PEM) conferences with no significant change in recent years. ⋯ Compared to NCE, women are underrepresented as speakers at APEMA, but not at SOEM. Abstract presenters are more likely to be women compared to invited speakers. While awards appear equally distributed, recipients do not mirror the proportion of women in PEM. Conference organizers and leaders in PEM should ensure gender equity in national recognition.
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Clinical prediction models are created to help clinicians with medical decision making, aid in risk stratification, and improve diagnosis and/or prognosis. With growing availability of both prehospital and in-hospital observational registries and electronic health records, there is an opportunity to develop, validate, and incorporate prediction models into clinical practice. However, many prediction models have high risk of bias due to poor methodology. ⋯ There are eight steps that should be followed when developing and internally validating a prediction model: (1) problem definition, (2) coding of predictors, (3) addressing missing data, (4) ensuring adequate sample size, (5) variable selection, (6) evaluating model performance, (7) internal validation, and (8) model presentation. Subsequent steps include external validation, assessment of impact, and cost-effectiveness. By following these steps, researchers can develop a prediction model with the methodological rigor and quality required for prehospital and EM research.