LITFL Review 174
Welcome to the 174th 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
The 15th International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (ISICEM-15) took place from the 17th to the 20th of March. Lots of FOAMy goodness bubbled up from the event, including:
- A neat summary from Adrian Wong in the OXICM blog: day 1 day 2 day 3
- A bunch of 1 minute interviews with key speakers on the ISICEM vimeo page
- A summary newsletter from Rob “the Machine” Mac Sweeney of Critical Care Reviews
Three big studies (ProMISe, ABLE, and a study on SIRS criteria) were presented. More info on these later in the review… [SO]
The Best of #FOAMed Emergency Medicine
- Lessons learnt: Tim Leeuwenberg from Kidocs.org unpacks a recent coroner’s case from South Australia regarding retrieval medicine and sedation of an aggressive patient. A great read with some interesting discussion in the comments [JAR]
- The use of alteplase (tPA) in patients with ischemic CVA in the 3-4.5 hour window is highly debateable. The BMJ highlights the best evidence with an analysis and podcast that demonstrate the inconsistency of the data. [AS]
- The Head Injury Retrieval Trial was published this week, and CareFlight Collective has some interesting insight into the operational differences between study sites that are important to interpreting the outcomes. [MG]
The Best of #FOAMcc Critical Care
- More posts discussing the strengths, weaknesses and impact of the ProMISe study from The Bottom Line, REBEL EM, and St Emlyn’s. [AS,MG]
- SIRS criteria has been thought of as overly sensitive and non-specific i.e. we’ll overcall a lot of patients but that’s okay if we catch everyone with the disease. EM Lit of Note discusses that it’s not only poor specificity that plagues SIRS, but low sensitivity as well. [AS]
- Here’s a lovely post from Humanizing Intensive Care on the importance of communication when placing patients on non-invasive ventilation. [SO]
- Chris Nickson has put some useful tips on managing sedation and delirium up at the Intensive Blog. [SO]
The Best of #FOAMtox Toxicology
- Maybe it’s scorpion venom…maybe it’s methamphetamine? The Poison Review looks at a recently published case with a link to a nice review on scorpion envenomation [JAR]
- Tox Talks next section on the Intralipid Toxoversy is out. Listen in! [JAR]
- Take a toke, or munch on a Keef Kat or Boddahfinger bar??? Leon Gussow discusses a recent NEJM paper on marijuana edibles [JAR]
The Best of #FOAMped Pediatrics
- What’s more important in a peds ER than sex, drugs and psychosis? Sex, drugs and psychosis in teens. Ilene Claudius discusses a number of issues on the topic at Essentials of EM 2014 [ML]
The Best of #MedEd FOAM and #FOAMsim
- Welcome to the #FOAMed party – The EMU Podcast from Nich Fern! Episode 1 – A Crash Course in #FOAMed Pt. 1. [AS]
LITFL Weekly Review Team
LITFL RV brought to you by:
- Anand Swaminathan [AS] (EM:RAP, Core EM,REBEL EM and The Teaching Institute)
- Andrew J. Bowman [AJB]
- Bruno Tomazini [BT] (ICURevisited)
- Chris Connolly [CC] (RCEMFOAMed, FOAMShED)
- Chris Nickson [CN] (RAGE, INTENSIVE and SMACC)
- Cian McDermott [CMD] (POCUS Geelong, SMACC)
- Craig Wylie [CW] (BadEM)
- Jeffrey Shih [JSh](ALiEM)
- Luke Phillips [LP] (POCUS Geelong)
- Manpreet ‘Manny’ Singh [MMS] (emDOCs.net)
- Marjorie Lazoff [ML] (TandemHealth)
- Mat Goebel [MG]
- Matt Siuba [MS]
- Philippe Rola [PR] (Thinkingcriticalcare)
- Rick Pescatore [RP] (EM News UC:RAP)
- Sarah Newman [SN]
- Salim Rezaie [SR] (REBEL EM, The Teaching Institute)
- Segun Olusanya [SO] (JICSCast, The Bottom Line)
- Thomas C. Neal [TCN] (PulmCCM)
Reference Sources and Reading List
LITFL Review
#FOAMed Updates
Marjorie Lazoff, MD FACP. Board certified internist with clinical background in academic emergency medicine, currently the founder of The Healing Red Pen, an editorial consulting company. Dr Lazoff is a full-time editor and strong supporter of FOAMed.