Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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To date, no studies in emergency medicine (EM) have addressed the educational value of the Residency Review Committee for Emergency Medicine's (RRC-EM) requirement for patient follow-up (FU). The authors examined whether performance of patient FU improved EM resident education. ⋯ This study indicates that EM residents and faculty believe that the act of performing patient FU has educational value for EM residents; however, the interobserver agreement between residents and faculty was low.
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Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical Trial
Raising our HEADSS: adolescent psychosocial documentation in the emergency department.
To determine the effectiveness of a chart stamp featuring the acronym "HEADSS" (Home, Education, Alcohol, Drugs, Smoking, Sex) at improving adolescent psychosocial documentation in the emergency department (ED) chart. ⋯ The HEADSS stamp is useful in prompting psychosocial documentation in the ED chart. Further study is needed to determine whether routine use of the HEADSS stamp technique can improve the detection and management of adolescent psychosocial problems.
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To evaluate the hypothesis that computed tomography (CT) angiography often yields a result interpreted as an alternative diagnosis to pulmonary embolism (PE) in emergency department (ED) patients. ⋯ In ED patients with suspected PE, the CT angiogram frequently provides evidence suggesting an important alternative diagnosis to PE. Pulmonary infiltrate suggesting pneumonia was the most common non-PE finding.
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To develop a clinical decision rule that would allow for the safe deferral of the digital rectal examination (DRE) in blunt trauma patients. ⋯ Adult patients with blunt trauma and a normal neurologic examination, with no blood at the urethral meatus, and who are less than 65 years old have an exceedingly low likelihood of a true-positive abnormal DRE. If validated, patients who meet these three criteria may have the DRE safely deferred.
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To prospectively quantify the number of unrecognized missed out-of-hospital intubations by ground paramedics using emergency physician verification as the criterion standard for verification of endotracheal tube placement. ⋯ The rate of unrecognized, misplaced out-of-hospital intubations in this urban, midwestern setting was 5.8%. This is more consistent with results of prior out-of-hospital studies that used field verification and is discordant with the only other study to exclusively use emergency physician verification performed on arrival to the emergency department.