Articles: emergency-medicine.
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We report on a process for assessing the communication skills of emergency medicine residents that includes 1) a faculty development initiative; 2) videotaping of actual resident-patient encounters in the emergency department; and 3) creation of an observation instrument for evaluating communication behaviors. We tested this observation instrument for inter-rater reliability, finding moderate-to-high agreement for only 11 of 32 items. ⋯ There was poor or no agreement for behaviors related to establishing rapport, gathering information, and contracting or informing. Challenges of assessing interpersonal skills of emergency medicine residents are discussed.
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Historical Article
Emergency medicine in Singapore: past, present, and future.
What began in 1948 as a "Casualty and Outpatient Service" at the Singapore General Hospital grew into the first 24-hour emergency unit in 1964 and has since expanded to the current emergency departments of the 6 public hospitals providing acute 24-hour accident and emergency services with an annual patient load of up to 540,000. In 1984, emergency medicine was recognized as a distinct medical specialty by the Ministry of Health. ⋯ Seven areas of subspecialization have since been identified and are in various stages of development: emergency cardiac care, emergency trauma care, emergency toxicology, prehospital emergency care, pediatric emergency medicine, disaster medicine, and observation medicine. The achievements in emergency medicine in Singapore can help to provide a model for the future development of emergency medicine in other similar environments.
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Emergency medicine has emerged as a specific medical specialty for 30 years. To be efficient, the emergency clinician frequently needs the contribution of radiological examinations. This is the reason why emergency radiology has emerged as a new radiologic subspecialty. The aim of this paper is to review the recent history of emergency medicine and to summarize the present state of the radiological organisation for emergency care in the Western countries.