Ten Commandments of Emergency Medicine
Wrenn and Slovis published the ‘Ten commandments of Emergency Medicine’ in 1991:
- Secure the ABCs.
- Consider or give naloxone, glucose and thiamine.
- Get a pregnancy test.
- Assume the worst: rule out serious disease.
- Do not send unstable patients to radiology.
- Look for the common red flags.
- Trust no one, believe nothing (not even yourself ): check lab results and rethink clinical decisions.
- Learn from your mistakes.
- Do unto others as you would your family (and that includes coworkers).
- When in doubt, err on the side of the patient.
Has anything changed? Should anything be added for the new millennium?
References
- Wrenn K, Slovis CM. The ten commandments of emergency medicine. Ann Emerg Med. 1991 Oct;20(10):1146-7. PMID: 1928892.
- Sun Yai-Cheng: Slideshare presentations; Emergency Physician at Jen-Ai Hospital Dali
- Ten Commandments of Clinical Research
- Ten Commandments of Pediatric Emergency Medicine
- Ten Commandments of Emergency Radiology
Chris is an Intensivist and ECMO specialist at the Alfred ICU in Melbourne. He is also a Clinical Adjunct Associate Professor at Monash University. He is a co-founder of the Australia and New Zealand Clinician Educator Network (ANZCEN) and is the Lead for the ANZCEN Clinician Educator Incubator programme. He is on the Board of Directors for the Intensive Care Foundation and is a First Part Examiner for the College of Intensive Care Medicine. He is an internationally recognised Clinician Educator with a passion for helping clinicians learn and for improving the clinical performance of individuals and collectives.
After finishing his medical degree at the University of Auckland, he continued post-graduate training in New Zealand as well as Australia’s Northern Territory, Perth and Melbourne. He has completed fellowship training in both intensive care medicine and emergency medicine, as well as post-graduate training in biochemistry, clinical toxicology, clinical epidemiology, and health professional education.
He is actively involved in in using translational simulation to improve patient care and the design of processes and systems at Alfred Health. He coordinates the Alfred ICU’s education and simulation programmes and runs the unit’s education website, INTENSIVE. He created the ‘Critically Ill Airway’ course and teaches on numerous courses around the world. He is one of the founders of the FOAM movement (Free Open-Access Medical education) and is co-creator of litfl.com, the RAGE podcast, the Resuscitology course, and the SMACC conference.
His one great achievement is being the father of three amazing children.
On Twitter, he is @precordialthump.
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