Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Comparative Study
Intraoral ultrasound in the diagnosis and treatment of suspected peritonsillar abscess in the emergency department.
Peritonsillar abscess (PTA) can be a life-threatening disease and may lead to significant complications without drainage. ⋯ These data suggest that intraoral US of suspected PTA allows for reliable diagnosis and safe and accurate abscess drainage.
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Comparative Study
Patient concerns about medical errors in emergency departments.
Despite large numbers of emergency encounters, little is known about how emergency department (ED) patients conceptualize their risk of medical errors. This study examines how safe ED patients feel from medical errors, which errors are of greatest concern, how concerns differ by patient and hospital characteristics, and the relationship between concerns and willingness to return for future care. ⋯ The majority of ED patients felt relatively safe from medical errors, yet a significant percentage of patients experienced concern about a specific error during their emergency encounter. Concerns varied by both patient and hospital characteristics and were highly linked to patient satisfaction. The selective nature of concerns may suggest that patients are attuned to cues they perceive to be linked to specific medical errors, but efforts to involve patients in error detection/prevention programs will be challenging given the stressful and intimidating nature of ED encounters.
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Comparative Study
Survey of emergency medicine resident debt status and financial planning preparedness.
Most resident physicians accrue significant financial debt throughout their medical and graduate medical education. The objective of this study was to analyze emergency medicine resident debt status, financial planning actions, and educational experiences for financial planning and debt management. ⋯ Most emergency medicine residency programs do not provide their residents with financial planning education. Most residents have accrued significant debt and believe that more financial planning and debt management education is needed during residency.
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Comparative Study
Identification of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest clusters using a geographic information system.
To locate all out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCAs) in Rochester, New York, and identify clusters of OHCAs, as well as clusters of patients who did not receive bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), in order to identify locations that may benefit from prevention efforts. ⋯ Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest can be plotted by geographic location. Clusters of OHCAs can be identified, which could be used to guide resource allocation. Clusters of OHCAs in which the patients did not receive bystander CPR can also be identified and could be used to direct educational programs. Census data can be superimposed on this information to identify characteristics of cluster locations and were used to demonstrate that the identified clusters were not simply the result of population density.
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To determine which components of a residency Web site (RWS) are important to residency applicants. ⋯ The content, and not necessarily the aesthetic quality, of an RWS is important to residency applicants. The residency program Web site would seem to be an important factor in the applicant's decision to apply. The applicant's perspective provides training program directors and administrators with focused direction in Web site development or for upgrading existing RWSs for use by future applicants.