LITFL Review 161

Welcome to the 161st 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

Excellent discussion of the role of Human Factors in medicinefrom the PHARM podcast featuring Nick Chrimes and Martin Bromiley. [AS]

The Best of #FOAMed Emergency Medicine

• “The Opiate Free ED” –  A better approach to pain control in the Emergency Department. Scott discusses alternative approaches to opiates with Sergey Motov. [AS]
• Flu season is heating up, at least for those in the Northern Hemisphere. Will you be prescribing neuraminidase inhibitors? The SGEM discusses the tome from the Cochrane Colaborative and EM Lit of Note discusses the parenteral drug peramivir. [AS]
• Intraarterial therapy for stroke has a new entry (MR CLEAN trial). EM Literature of Note and St. Emlyn’s offer excellent reviews of the article that caution us to not get too excited about the results. [AS]
• EM Literature of Note also discusses the ICARO-3 study, a real-world efficacy study of intra-arterial interventions in stroke. Another study which also question whether intra-arterial therapy should be embraced. [AS]

The Best of #FOAMcc Critical Care

• The Bottom Line reviews the use of esmolol in patients with refractory ventricular fibrillation. [AS]
• Wow. Josh Farkas gives a mini-masterclass on Guytonian physiology by reminding us that a hyperdynamic heart with a collapsing IVC does not mean volume depletion. [SO]
• Here’s a little summary on a recent trial comparing feeding or waiting in acute severe pancreatitis from Justin Mandeville. [SO]
• Some nice pieces from the INTENSIVE blog: a review of the 1999 TRICC trial on transfusions in intensive care, and a post on ventilation and weaning from VV ECMO. [SO]

The Best of #FOAMus Ultrasound

• Matt + Mike finish off US guided CPR with Part II, this week discussing TEE; using US for pulse checks; and the role of US intra-arrest and during post-ROSC care. [AS]
• Peripheral IV placement resource from the Ultrasound Leadership Academy via the EM Curious blog. [SL]
• A wonderful post on US diagnosis of pneumothorax here– thanks to Jacob Avila from 5minsono.com. [SO]
• Bedside echo is useful in diagnosis in infants too! Try your hand at this week’s Ultrasound of the Week. [SO]
• Could ultrasound help a 74 year old lady with arm tingling? Of course! Check out this Ultrasound For the Win case. [SO]

LITFL Weekly Review Team

Reference Sources and Reading List

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