LITFL Review 143

Welcome to the 143rd LITFL Review! Your regular and reliable source for the highest highlights, sneakiest sneak peeks and loudest shout-outs from the webbed world of emergency medicine and critical care. Each week the LITFL team casts the spotlight on the blogosphere’s best and brightest, and deliver a bite-sized chunk of Global FOAM.

The Most Fair Dinkum Ripper Beauts of the Week

Ripper this week is smashed out by Amal Mattu as he reminds us why amiodarone is dangerous in the treatment of Atrial Fibrillation with WPW. Avoid drugs (except procedural sedation agents) and proceed to cardioversion instead. [AS]

The Best of #FOAMed Emergency Medicine

• What is an appropriate gold standard? Can we use an age-adjusted d-Dimer to risk stratify PE? Does our decreased tolerance for missed PE and low incidence of disease in studies affect the utility of our tests? All of these questions addressed by Rory Spiegel in “The Adventure of the Golden Standard.” [AS]
• More costs and no benefits. Not a great slogan but the clear truth about endovascular therapy in acute ischemic stroke by Ryan Radecki. [AS]

The Best of #FOAMcc Critical Care

• EMCrit shows all the stuff he has learned about PE from following Jeff Kline on Twitter – yet another demonstration of why you ‘don’t have time not to use social media’. Weingart also talks to Jim Ducanto about the oxylator – and interesting device designed to overcome the shortcomings of the traditional bag-valve-mask. [CN]
• The past week on INTENSIVE served up Q&A posts on Tiger tubes and sodium measurement, as well as a VIN talk by Steve Philpot on the Organ Donation Registry in Australia and a JICScast interview with Owen Roodenburg on The Alfred’s innovative night-time hospital programme. [CN]
• ICN has released the ‘Explained’ series of video tutorials recorded at the Bedside Critical Care conference on key critical care procedures such as escharotomy, airway topicalisation, use of an intubating LMA and much much more. [CN]
• Chris Partyka’s ‘Going the Wrong Way’ is an excellent case-based post demonstrating why listening to a murmur and bedside echo is so valuable in patient’s with suspected cardiogenic shock. [CN]

The Best of #FOAMtox Toxicology

• Leon Gussow reviews the utility of point of care ultrasound in overdoses – specifically salicylate and calcium channel blockers. [AS]
• How much do you know about Heparin-induced Thrombocytopaenia (HIT)? Leon Gussow has a quiz for you…[JAR]
• Podcast recommend from Leon Gussow- Chloral hydrate poisoning presenting as a cardiac arrest! [JAR]

The Best of #FOAMped Pediatrics

• Andy Neil gives a great review of pediatric HSV with lots of high-yield pearls including tips regarding herpes encephalitis. [AS]

The Best of #MedEd FOAM and #FOAMsim

• The SMACC Chicago EVO Competition has been opened – get your team of educators together to make videos about how equipment works and how to use it. Each month a free ticket to SMACC Chicago is up for grabs – but more importantly this project should create some great FOAM content which everyone can benefit from. [CN]

LITFL Weekly Review Team

Reference Sources and Reading List

• #FOAMed – #FOAMcc – #FOAMres
• #FOAMped – #FOAMtox – #FOAMus
• #FOAMim – #FOANed