Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Who should be estimating a patient's weight in the emergency department?
Medical personnel often need to estimate a patient's weight rapidly and accurately to administer pharmacologic agents whose dosages are based on weight. Inaccurate estimates of weight may result in administration of either subtherapeutic or, in other cases, toxic doses of medications. The hypothesis of this study was that the patient is a more accurate estimator of his or her own weight than the physician or nurse caring for him or her. ⋯ When a patient is unable to be weighed, the patient's own weight estimate should be used. If neither is possible, the physician or nurse should estimate the patient's weight.
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The national morbidity and mortality associated with falls from a height is incompletely described. The authors estimated the rates of injury, hospitalization, and mortality due to these falls for subgroups of the U.S. population. ⋯ Ladder and structure falls by elders are a substantial emergency department problem warranting thorough clinical evaluation and injury prevention efforts.
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Comparative Study
What characteristics of applicants to emergency medicine residency programs predict future success as an emergency medicine resident?
Program directors of emergency medicine (EM) residencies attempt to select candidates who will subsequently perform well as residents. This study was undertaken to identify characteristics available at the time of application to an EM residency that predict future success in residency. ⋯ Using regression modeling, it may be possible to predict future resident performance from characteristics contained in residency applications. Applicants from top-tier medical schools and those with distinctive talents were more successful in the UCSD EM residency.
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The authors examined the ability of emergency physicians (EPs) to recognize adverse drug-related events (ADREs) in elder patients presenting to the emergency department (ED). ⋯ EP performance was superior at identifying severe ADREs relating to the patients' chief complaints. However, EP performance was suboptimal with respect to identifying ADREs of lower severity, having missed a significant number of ADREs of moderate severity as well as ones unrelated to the patients' chief complaints. ADRE detection methods need to be developed for the ED to aid EPs in detecting those ADREs that are most likely to be missed.