Tag: emergency-room
In the Emergency Department: Recognizing and Responding to Signs of Human Trafficking
It is estimated that more than 20 million people worldwide are victims of exploitation and of sex trafficking or labor trafficking. Human trafficking is not the same as human smuggling. Smuggling is a violation of immigration laws. Trafficking is a violation of human rights. Victims are females and males, children and adults, foreign nationals and […]
Read ArticleIntubation Tips, Part 2
Hopefully, you have already read about NO DESAT and the importance of pre-oxygenation before intubation in Intubation Tips, Part 1. We want to share some more tips that optimize the safety and success of this high-risk procedure. In a great intubation lecture by Dr. Levitan, he covers a wide variety of airway topics. It will […]
Read ArticleAddiction and Pain: Who Gets a Script?
As if we as ER docs didn’t have enough on our plates already with proliferating drug shortages, adapting to the Affordable Care Act, the capriciousness of a new and very temperamental EMR, and my teenage daughter’s mood swings (wait, how did that get in there?), we also find ourselves under the microscope for our treatment […]
Read ArticleWe Want Our Healthcare Like We Want our Fast Food
With due respect to those patient souls among us, America is, in general, an impatient nation. That includes how we think about our healthcare. This is why I read with some interest, and some amusement, stories like “A real ‘doc fix,’” published this week in the New York Times. Basically it says we need to […]
Read ArticleMaryland’s Health Information Exchange Helps Take the Blinders off Emergency Care
The headline on a Washington Post story last week was enough to give almost any healthcare consumer a moment’s pause: “Maryland Hospitals to Share Patient Data.” To which a patient might respond, “Wait, You Mean Hospitals Don’t Share Data Now?” We see it in the Emergency Department all the time. Patients come in who have […]
Read ArticleSometimes the Best Emergency Medicine is No Medicine at All
I was recently reminded by a patient experience that the best medicine sometimes is no medicine at all. I cared for a young woman who had been seen the last few nights complaining of shortness of breath. When it was obvious that she had normal breath sounds, no wheezing and normal oxygen level I started […]
Read ArticleWhen an Emergency Room Gets New Management, Relationships Come First
It’s no big surprise that there is anxiety when a new management group takes over an Emergency Department. The question is, what can our group do to effectively confront that anxiety? At midnight on December 31st, 2011, our group took over management of the emergency room at Bristol Hospital. The previous group had managed the ER there […]
Read ArticleTwenty Years of Change and the “View from the Box”
Once, a really long time ago, before blogs if you can conceive of such a time, I embarked on a part-time writing career. My subject matter was the parade of frailty, the courage and the just plain bizarre that were to be found daily – hourly – in the ER. My first collection of essays […]
Read ArticleDoes Emergency Medicine Really Matter?
I’m always curious when people ask what I do and I say I work in an ER: what exactly do they imagine I do there? They may picture us treating sniffles, ankle sprains, and the uninsured. At least, that’s what some in media and politics would have them imagine. You want to know what I […]
Read ArticleThe Expanding Role and Bright Future of Advanced Practice Practitioners in the Emergency Department
Advanced Practice Practitioners see a wide variety of patients at our hospital sites, from those with chest pain to those with minor lacerations and everything in between. This practice is not limited to us. Nationally, it is estimated that Physician Assistants (PA’s) see 10 percent of emergency room patients in the United States, and a 2009 […]
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