Ten Commandments of Pediatric Emergency Medicine
A decade after Wrenn and Slovis gave us the ‘Ten Commandments of Emergency Medicine‘, Timothy Givens proposed the following ‘Ten Commandments of Pediatric Emergency Medicine’ to supplement the originals:
- Children are not small adults
— anatomy, physiology, cognition and emotion varies with age - Ill and injured children regress
— the sick teenager may act like a toddler, give them time and space. - The “patient” might be the one holding the child
- Kids are the real deal
— In the majority of cases, their symptoms are real and not factitious. - Laboratory tests and X-rays seldom beat a good history and physical examination
— investigations are rarely needed - Many hands make light work
— get help with procedures: do it right, do it once. - Check and double-check. then, check again
— especially drug doses - Children feel pain just like you do — treat it
- Close the loop
— Follow-up care is the cornerstone of pediatric care - Above all, you are the child’s advocate
Reference
- Givens T. The Ten Commandments of Pediatric Emergency Medicine. J Emerg Med. 2004 Aug;27(2):193-4.
- Ten Commandments of Clinical Research
- Ten Commandments of Emergency Medicine
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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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