Image credit: secildegirmenciler This post was peer reviewed. Click to learn more.  Authors: Kyla Rakoczy MS-3, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine Kasha Bornstein, MD, MPH PGY-1, LSU New Orleans Internal Medicine/Emergency Medicine Choosing a specialty is one of the most daunting tasks of medical school. Pursuing an emergency medicine residency affords a fast-paced, often unpredictable environment with a diversity of patients unique to the specialty, while the life of an internist involves rounding, longitudinal patient care, and long contemplative s ..read more

Image credit: Pexels Authors: Jennifer Rosenbaum, MD; Nicole V. Lucas, MD; and Kraftin E. Schreyer, MD CMQ FAAE Originally published: Common Sense January/February 2021 The advent and broad availability of ridesharing services, such as Lyft and Uber, are changing the way patients access medical services, and emergency departments (EDs) are taking notice. Health care providers are increasingly aware that patients’ social determinants greatly affect their clinical outcomes. One of these factors is access to transportation, and ridesharing might be part of the solution. A 2013 review ..read more

Image credit: Pexels Author: Shane A. Sobrio, MD Originally published: Common Sense March/April 2021 Flashback to 2019. Hong Kong protests were raging on, the U.S. Women’s National Team won the world cup, Donald Trump was being impeached, and the health care battle continued to revolve around the opioid epidemic. It wasn’t necessarily easy, but it was familiar. Practices were being implemented to help prevent reckless opioid prescribing and increase availability of naloxone which, to an extent, were working. Flash forward to 2020, the year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Millions of people ..read more

Image credit: Pexels Author: Ryan P. Gibney, MD Originally published: Common Sense March/April 2021 It definitely felt different this new year. The normal buzz around town, packed stores, twinkling lights, and family gatherings uncharacteristically muted as compared to years past. I noticed a profound change in the hospital starting in mid-November: the winter chill was ever present in the air, while families prepped for the upcoming holidays in uncertainty. It started as a trickle three or four critically ill patient’s per day—COVID and others—but quickly became evident that the le ..read more

Authors: Taylor M. Douglas, MD; Taylor Conrad, MD MS; Wesley Chan, MD; and Christianna Sim, MD MPH Editor: Kelly Maurelus, MD FAAEM and Kami Hu, MD FAAEM Most, if not all, emergency medicine clinicians are familiar with massive transfusion protocols (MTP), which were developed to create a systematic method for the administration of large volume resuscitation for hemorrhagic shock. The evidence behind these protocols and how they were developed, however, are less well known. First seen in military trauma settings, MTPs have been translated to civilian patients with the supporting evidence to ..read more

Image credit: Pexels Author: Lauren Lamparter – President, AAEM/RSA Medical Student Council Originally published: Common Sense March/April 2021 For the third-year medical student, the emergency medicine residency application process starts with applying to away rotations. This year, uncertainty remains around the possibility of aways, but hopefully, as COVID-19 vaccines are distributed more widely, travel and away rotations can become possible. One of the past AAEM/RSA Medical Student Council Presidents, Dr. Michael Wilk, wrote an article, “Seven Tips for Selecting Your EM Away Rotat ..read more

Image credit: Pexels Author: Jennifer Gemmill, MD FAAEM Originally published: Common Sense January/February 2021 I am a terrible patient. I will refuse medicines prescribed to me. I will pick up my heavy 2-year-old just hours after delivering my newborn while the L&D nurses give me the evil eye. I will remove my own loop recorder in my bathroom at home instead of having it taken out by my unknowing cardiologist (it’s amazing how useful leftover lidocaine and eyebrow tweezers can be). If you are my physician for any reason, I will be a handful. However, I will also be my stronges ..read more

Image credit: Pexels Authors: Ahmed Mamdouh Taha Mostafa, MD; Kevin C. Welch, DO; and Max Cooper, MD RDMS Originally published: Common Sense January/February 2021 Case A 76-year-old female with a past medical history of hypertension, obstructive sleep apnea, diverticulitis, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, depression, and renal cell carcinoma status post remote nephrectomy who presented to our ED with four days of intermittent, diffuse, crampy abdominal pain associated with nausea and non-bloody, non-bilious emesis, hiccoughs, and inability to tolerate PO. On examination, vital signs w ..read more

Image credit: Pexels Author: Alexandria Gregory, MD – AAEM/RSA Editor, Common Sense Originally published: Common Sense January/February 2021 Four months after the beginning of second year, I still feel weird being called a “senior resident.” It feels like just yesterday I was the intern, lowest on the totem pole, learning to navigate the flow of patient care and the ED. I didn’t expect July 1st to feel any different than the days prior when I walked into my shift, but I was wrong. Suddenly, it felt as if my attendings trusted me more, and now there were more junior doctors seeki ..read more

Authors: Christianna Sim, MD MPH; Taylor Conrad, MD MS; Taylor M. Douglas, MD; Wesley Chan, MD Editors: Kelly Maurelus, MD FAAEM and Kami Hu, MD FAAEM Originally published: Common Sense November/December 2020 Question: How can end-tidal carbon dioxide (ETCO2) monitoring guide our management of cardiac arrest? In 2010, the American Heart Association (AHA) revised the Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) guidelines to include the recommendation of using capnography to monitor end-tidal carbon dioxide (ETCO2) during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR),1 and has continued this recommendation to ..read more