Emergency medicine journal : EMJ
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To investigate whether elderly patients, presenting following trauma and requiring immobilisation and imaging of the cervical spine, require increased use of CT and spend longer immobilised when compared to the younger population. ⋯ Half of the elderly patients underwent CT, and they were immobilised for significantly longer than younger patients. Measures should be adopted to facilitate early diagnosis and mitigate complications of prolonged immobilisation in elderly patients with neck trauma.
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In the UK, recruitment of adequate numbers of doctors to emergency medicine (EM) has been problematic. With this as background, we analysed data about career choice for, and progression in, EM in a large multi-purpose study of doctors' careers. ⋯ Early career choices for EM are less predictive of career destinations than choices for other specialties, and, compared with many other specialties, doctors who pursue it may turn to it relatively late. Training policies on transferable competencies should enable clinical trainees in other related specialties to bank some of their skills if they transfer to EM, rather than necessarily having to start core training in year 1 of EM specialty training.