Skip to content
Log in Join free
EM Basic

EM Basic

All episodes.

111 episodes · showing the newest 111

EM Basic is now partnering with EB Medicine

This is a quick announcement to let you know that EM Basic is now partnering with EB Medicine as our bandwidth sponsor.  EB Medicine publishes many resources in Emergency Medicine to include EM Practice, Pediatric EM Practice, as well as LLSA reviews.  These reviews are made by EM physicians for EM providers and provide the latest evidence based medicine reviews of common EM chief complaints.  Recent issues include management of seizures in the ED, hand injuries, and angioedema.  These are quick and to the point reviews that review everything you need to know and nothing that you don't. For residents and students, you can get free electronic access to all of EB Medicine's issues for free- no obligation and no strings attached.  EB Medicine is so confident in the quality of their resources that they know you will want to subscribe once you are done training.  I started reading EB Medicine as a resident and it is one of the few resources that I read cover to cover each month. For attendings and those needing CME- if you visit EB Medicine you will get a great discount and help support the EM Basic podcast with each subscription that is purchased. In exchange for this, I'll be promoting EB Medicine's products at the end of each podcast.  These will be brief and they won't be intrusive.  In accordance with the previous disclaimer on EM Basic, it has been updated to reflect EB Medicine as our official bandwidth sponsor.  However, EM Basic has an always will be free from any outside influence on the content in the podcast.  EB Medicine or any other company will never have any influence on the educational content of the podcast.  

Febrile Seizures

In this episode we are going to talk about febrile seizures.  We see this chief complaint a lot in the ED so it's important that we know this topic really well.  Today's script was written by Dr. Andrea Sarchi and will review how to do a good history and physical, how to rule out serious pathology without overtesting, and how to talk with parents.  While simple febrile seizures don't cause any harm to the child, they are very scary for parents so it's important that we know the facts so we can re-assure them and prevent future worry.

Ebola Update

Ebola has been in the news for the past few months and it has taken on more urgency in the US as cases have arrived from outside the country  Within the past week, transmission to two healthcare workers outside of Africa has been reported.  Dr. Prabu Selvam, an intern at the Wright-Pratt Emergency Medicine Residency, provided the resources for today's episode on Ebola.  In this short episode we will discuss appropriate screening for Ebola, it's signs and symptoms, lab abnormalities, how to confirm infection with laboratory testing, treatment of Ebola, and how to properly isolate patients with this disease.  While now is not the time to panic and think that every fever and sniffle is Ebola, we should certainly be aware of how to properly screen, diagnose, and treat this deadly disease.

Psychiatric Emergencies Part 2

Today's episode is the second and final part of Dr. Sheyna Gifford's interview with Dr. Les Zun on psychiatric emergencies.  This episode will talk more about treating depressed patients, what you can do for patients who board in your ED for hours to days to even a week, and medications used for treatment of acute agitation in the ED.

Psychiatric Emergencies Part 1

Today's episode is another installment in the EM Basic Project.  Dr. Sheyna Gifford took on the task of interviewing Dr. Les Zun, a nationally known speaker on the topic of psychiatric emergencies.  While we did an episode on psychiatric medical screening before, this episode will focus on some of the tougher situations we encounter in the ED.  For example- What do we do about the patient who is depressed but not suicidal?  How do we calm down agitated patients without reaching for medications?  These are tough questions but Dr. Zun goes througha methodical way of thinking about these issues and offers some real world practical advice that you can use on your next shift. 

Hepatic Emergencies from FOAMcast

Today I am handing over the podcast to FOAMcast by Drs. Lauren Westafer and Jeremy Faust.  A little more than a month ago, Dr. Nick Genes challenged twitter to create core content FOAM for hepatic emergencies.  Lauren and Jeremy did an excellent episode on this topic on FOAMcast so here it is- re-broadcasted on EM Basic.  They'll review common hepatic emergencies and their managementi in the ED and point you in the right direction to learn even more on this topic.  I haven't edited their episode at all- it's all Lauren and Jeremy's episode.  If you like what you hear, go to foamcast.org or look for FOAMcast on iTunes.

Airway Update Screencast

41 min Video

Today is the third anniversary of the EM Basic podcast.  To celebrate this milestone, this is a screencast titled "Airway Update".  I first prepared this lecture about two years ago for a conference but the topics are still relevant today.  This will be most useful for medical students and EM interns who may not have been exposed to these airway topics.  This screencast will help catch you up on what we have been talking about over the last two years on social media and FOAMed.  We'll review apenic oxygenation, delayed sequence intubation, how to effectively use ketamine in your practice, awake cricothyrotomy, and more.

Salicylate Overdose

Today's episode is another installment for the EM Basic Project by Dr. Andrea Sarchi.  Salicylate overdose is a toxidrome that we have to be on the lookout for in the ED.  While some cases are obvious because the patient or EMS can tell us what they took, some cases are subtle and require vigilance to make the diagnosis.  In this episode we'll review the important history and physical points, how to order the right tests, manage the toxicity, and properly disposition the patient.

Acetaminophen overdose

Today's episode talks about the diagnosis and management of Acetaminophen overdose.  This is another addition to the EM Basic Project written by Andrea Sarchi. We encounter acetaminophen overdose frequently in the ED and we need to be on the look out for this because patients can be completely asymptomatic.  If we don't catch it, acetaminophen overdose can result in liver failure requiring transplant or even death unless we interevene early.  This episode will review how to properly workup a patient with a known or suspected acetaminophen overdose, what tests to order, and how to decide who needs antidote therapy.

Documentation

In today's episode we are going to talk about documentation in the ED.  It is very important that we are complete but concise in our documentation in order to provide an accurate record for the patient's ED patient to protect them and ourselves from problems down the road.  Good documentation is good patient care so we need to know how to do this efficiently.  We will review each part of the chart starting with the triage note and ending how to give good discharge instructions.  We'll also review some tips and tricks of the trade regarding abbreviations that will make your charting faster, how to document interactions with our consultants, and even what to do when you have to document a difficult situation with a consultant.

Asymptomatic Hypertension

The patient's blood pressure is 190/80 but they feel fine...how do we treat these patients in the ED?  Labs?  EKG? BP meds?  Admission???...but they are here for an ankle sprain!  Asymptomatic hypertension is a challenging complaint to deal with in the ED because of so many conflicting opinions and worries but it doesn't have to be difficult.  In this episode, we'll discuss a systematic and rational way to evaluate patients with asymptomatic HTN, do limited and targeting testing, and get them the right followup while calming the patient's fears and avoiding harm.

PE Part 2

This episode is part 2 of the PE podcast where we will discuss risk stratification and treatment of PE.  It's important that we accurately quanitfy the amount of clot burden that the patient has to order the right treatment and admit them (or maybe even discharge them) to the right location.  We'll talk about how to classify massive, sub-massive, and "non-massive" PEs and how to treat them. We'll also briefly talk about emergning evidence for the expanding role of thrombolytics and outpatient treatment of PE.

PE Part 1

This episode has been a long time in the making- presenting Pulmonary Embolism, part 1.  PE is a deadly diagnose that we frequently have to consider in the ED.  The presentations can be very varied but we need to know how to work up this disease while avoid unnecessary testing and harm to our patients.  In part 1, we will discuss risk factors for PE, symptoms that should make you suspicious for PE, and how to order the correct labs and imaging to diagnose this serious condition.

Oxygen in COPD- followup

The last podcast on COPD led to some great discussion online about the use of oxygen in patients with COPD.  To address this, Drs. Tim Peck and Colby Redfield are back with a quick summary to clarify how to best use oxygen in patients with COPD.  There's also another cameo by the one and only Dr. Peter Rosen on how to suceede in emergency medicine.

COPD/Shortness of breath

EM Basic is back with another episode of the EM Basic Project.  In today's episode Drs. Tim Peck and Colby Redfield review the chief complaint of shortness of breath with a focus on COPD.  Even though we did an episode on shortness of breath a while back, it's always great to get a new perspective on this chief complaint.  Today's episode also features a very special guest cameo by the name of Dr. Peter Rosen.  He pretty much started EM as a speciality and you may have seen his name on a textbook or two.

Monoarticular arthritis

This is the premiere of the first contribution to the EM Basic Project.  Dr. Brian Cohn from Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri is on the podcast today talking about mono-articular arthritis.  He reviews the common physical exam findings, the appropriate lab work and medications, how to avoid common pitfalls in this diagnosis, some evidence based medicine pearls and even some relevant medical trivia.  Dr. Cohn is one of the authors of the EMJ club podcast which reviews common EM topics in a journal club style format.

Anatomy of a Resuscitation

This episode is something unlike anything I have ever done with EM Basic.  I had a case recently of a super sick patient who required a big resuscitation.  Fortunately, the patient did great and was gracious enough to give me her permission to share her case so that others can learn.  In this episode, we'll go over what happened with this patient step by step and I'll review some valuable teaching points on how to get things done in the resuscitation bay and how to think about treating critically ill patients.

The EM Basic Project

This is an announcement instead of an episode.  Introducing the EM Basic Project.  If you are a senior resident or attending in emergency medicine- this is your chance to contribute to the podcast.  I will be accepting quality submissions for the podcast with help every step of the way.  I'm also looking for a webmaster to help spruce up the blog page.  In addition- if you have an idea for a blog or a podcast or don't even know where to start, email me and I can help.  Take a listen to hear all the details and stay calm- I will still be producing new material just like usual as the podcast enters it's third year of production.

Anaphylaxis Part 2- Airway

In this episode, we'll talk about how to manage the airway in patients with anaphylaxis or any other upper airway obstruction.  These can be some of the most difficult airways to manage and we can run into trouble if we don't have a good plan ahead of time.  Some of this is a little "advanced" and "cutting edge" but it's important to have as many tools in your arsenal when dealing with these critical airways.  We'll review other options besides RSI to include awake intubation, delayed sequence intubation (DSI), and the awake cric.

Anaphylaxis Part 1- Diagnosis and Treatment

Anaphylaxis is a potentially deadly diagnosis that requires quick action.  In this episode, we will discuss the diagnosis and management of the entire spectrum of allergic reactions from mild cutaneous reactions to life threatening anaphylaxis.  This is the first episode in a 2 part series.  Part 2 will discuss airway management in anaphylaxis and other upper airway obstructions situations.

Essential Evidence #8 - The PERC Rule

Today's Essential Evidence Episode discusses the paper that derived and validated the PE Rule-out Criteria or PERC rule.  This is a clinical decision aid that we can use to reliably exclude pulmonary embolism in emergency department patients without any further testing.  We'll talk about some background on diagnosing PE in the ED, the study design, how to use the PERC rule in your everyday practice, and some clinical pearls as well.

Seizures

We encounter seizure disorders frequently in the ED.  In this episode, we'll review all the important points about seizures including the confusing and difficult topic of pseudosezures.  We'll also go in depth on the ED treatment of seizures and status epilepticus.

EM Basic Essential Evidence- 7 SAEM Occult Bacteremia

We're back with a new episode of Essential Evidence.  This article is from Academic Emergency Medicine March 2009 and it talks about getting blood cultures in well appearing kids aged 3 to 36 months.  We used to get a lot of blood cultures in these well appearing kids with fever but this article was the final nail in the coffin that got us to stop doing that.  It's hard to believe that based on how we practice now but we needed this large study to show us that we are now doing the right thing.

Eye Complaints

EM Basic is back and ready for the new year.  We see various eye complaints a lot in the ED.  This episode will review common eye complaints, their treatments, and a bonus section on how to do a lateral canthotomy.

EM Basic Essential Evidence- PECARN Head CT Rule

This episode reviews the article that most people call the PECARN head CT rule or the Kupperman head CT rule (named for the first author). This is an easy to use clinical decision rule that can help us reduce the number of head CTs that we do on children with minor head injury. We owe it to our patients to spare them excess radiation, cost, and time in the ED and this rules helps us do this. In order to use this rule effectively, you need to read this article and understand how the study was done.  This allows us to understand the strengths and weaknesses of this rule and helps us apply it in our everyday practice.

Psychiatric Medical Screening

In this episode, we will discuss how to perform medical screening for patients with psychiatric complaints.  While most of these workups are routine, we have to be able to catch the small percentage of patients who have a medical cause to their psychiatric complaint.  Don't think it can't happen to you- it almost happened to me twice during residency!  We'll discuss how to stay safe while evaluating psychiatric patients, how to get the entire history, how to do appropriate testing, catch the red flags, and make the appropriate disposition. In the bonus section, a community ED doctor wrote me to tell me his thoughts on testicular pain and why we may not need an ultrasound on every patient.  As you'll hear, the answer is far from settled and not without controversy.

EM Basic Essential Evidence- Therapeutic Hypothermia

This episode of EM Basic Essential Evidence will review the two articles that led to the adoption of therapeutic hypothermia as a treatment for survivors of cardiac arrest. This is a simple yet highly effective therapy that improves survival and neurological outcome in survivors of cardiac arrest so it is important that we know and understand these two articles.

EM Basic Essential Evidence- BMJ Subarachnoid Hemorrhage

This is an article published in the last year in the British Medical Journal that looked at the sensitivity of modern CT scanners in detecting subarachnoid hemorrhage. This article made a lot of waves because it suggested that a head CT within 6 hours of headache onset is 100% sensitive for subarachnoid hemorrhage.  Some have called it a practice changer that allows us to avoid doing a lumbar puncture so its important to read it for yourself and decide if it should change your practice.

Non-invasive Ventilation

Non-invasive ventilation is a great technique that we can use for just about any patient who is short of breath.  We can use it to avoid intubation in our patients who are close to respiratory failure.  In this episode, we'll talk about how non-invasive ventilation works, which patients we can use it on, and how to actually make it happen.  For that last part, I'll borrow from a post by Seth Treuger at his blog mdaware.org on how to start non-invasive ventilation quickly while keeping it comfortable for the patient.

EM Basic Essential Evidence- The NEXUS Study

This episode will discuss the NEXUS study.  NEXUS was a study that studied thousands of patients to validate a set of rules so that we can "clinically clear" patients with possible c-spine injury without getting an x-ray. This study has helped us avoid radiation in certain low-risk patients, saved the cost of x-rays and CT scans, and speed these patients through the ED. We'll talk a lot about the statistical side of this study and how you can apply it in your everyday practice.

Testicular Pain

All right- let's keep the laughter to a minimum...today's episode is talking about how to approach testicular pain in the ED.  You need to know how to approach this chief complaint because if you don't workup the patient correctly, they can lose their future fertility and possibly their testicle.  We'll review how to take a good history and do a rapid focused exam to make sure that we catch all those patients with torsion and don't delay their treatment.

EM Basic Essential Evidence- Admission for patients with minor head injury on coumadin- Annals of EM

In this episode, we'll talk about a recent article in Annals of Emergency Medicine that has a lot of people talking. This is a study that looked at patients on coumadin (warfarin) who had minor head injuries. The patients were admitted for 24 hours of observation and had a repeat head CT. The study looked at how many patients had bleeding on a repeat head CT and the conclusions were suprising. Should this be our new standard of care?  Maybe but maybe not.

Hyperkalemia

Hyperkalemia (high serum potassium) can be one of the most serious electrolyte disorders that we treat in the ED.  We'll review how to interpret hyperkalemia in light of the patient's clinical condition, how to rapidly evaluate a patient with hyperkalemia and how to quickly treat patients with severe hyperkalemia.

Introducing the EM Basic Apple and Android Apps

This is just a short announcement for the launch of the EM Basic App in the Apple App Store and the Android Amazon Marketplace.  Go to the blog post at embasic.org to see all the information about how to get this new app on your phone or mobile device.

EM Basic Essential Evidence- Rivers Sepsis NEJM

Introducing EM Basic Essential Evidence- your boot camp guide to emergency medicine literature. Each episode will review an important emergency medicine article from the ground up. We'll review the study's design, basic statistics, results, and wrap it up with some analysis to help you understand the study and how to put it into your everyday practice. The goal here is to provide a guide through the emergency medicine literature so you can read and understand the "must know" studies out there. This is also the re-launch of EM Basic to a weekly podcast format.  Every monday morning, a new episode will be uploaded to start the week. Each week will alternate between a regular review episode and an essential evidence episode. For the essential evidence episodes, I will try to split up the episodes each month- one episode on a landmark article and one episode on a newer article that is making the rounds. I have a list of articles that I will be talking about but if there are any studies out there that you think I should cover, email me at steve@embasic.org. For this first episode, we'll talk about the famous Rivers sepsis study that started the push to early goal directed therapy for sepsis in the ED. Although I talked about this study a lot on the sepsis podcast a while back, we'll talk more in depth about the study so you can really understand it.

Hyponatremia

Hyponatremia (low serum sodium) is one of the most common electrolyte disorders encountered in the ED. Most of the time this electrolyte disorder requires us to do less- not more. However, if the patient is critically ill from their hyponatremia then we need to know how to quickly intervene and even be a little creative if we don't have the medications that we want. We'll review how to do the right thing for these patients, track down the cause of hyponatremia, and make the right decisions so we don't cause any harm.

Stroke and Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA)

In this episode, we will discuss the diagnosis and treatment of stroke and transient ischemic attack (TIA). The ED is the front line in stroke care so we need to know how to work up this chief complaint. We'll go over how to recognize the signs and symptoms of a stroke, how to get a rapid and complete history, how to screen patients for contraindications to thrombolytics, and how to catch a few stroke mimics.

Procedural Sedation Part 2- Medications

32 min

This episode is part 2 of the procedural sedation podcast. This episode focuses on the medications that we commonly use for procedural sedation. First, we'll review the use of oxygen during procedural sedation and then talk about basic airway maneuvers before we talk about individual medications. For each drug, the drug class, dosing, duration of action, and adverse effects will be discussed with the overall theme of patient safety.

Procedural Sedation Part 1- Preparation

23 min

This is the first of two episodes on procedural sedation. In the ED we need to provide safe and effective procedural sedation and analgesia whenever we do painful procedures. It is our job to relieve anxiety and pain in our patients and we need to know how to do this right. This episode will focus on how to prepare for a procedural sedation. We will talk about how to make the decision as to who is an appropriate candidate for procedural sedation in the ED, the depth of sedation, and how to prepare all of our equipment so that we leave nothing to chance. This will be in preparation for the second episode where we will talk about the medications that we use in procedural sedation.

Neuro exam supplement

8 min

Since I refer to the neuro exam from the headache episode, I decided to take that part of the episode and make a supplement so you can easily review the "5 minute ED neuro exam." Let me know if there are any other topics that you would like me to make into a supplement like this.

Dizziness

29 min

We're back with a podcast on...dizziness!  While weak and dizzy is almost never the most exciting chart in the rack, we see it a lot in the ED. This is a chief complaint where we have to be on the lookout for the serious causes of dizziness among the avalanche of not-so-serious causes of dizziness. First- what does the patient mean by "I feel dizzy"? This seems like a silly question because just about everyone has felt "dizzy" before but if you get it wrong, you'll go down the completely wrong diagnostic path. One small self-promotion- The new academic year is just about to start so if you like the podcast, please tell your colleagues, classmates, and especially the new medical students and interns.

Trauma resuscitation part 2- interventions

25 min

For the second part of trauma resuscitation, we'll discuss the various interventions that you may have to accomplish in the trauma bay. The first part is a continuation from the first episode and talks about the EFAST exam- a vital part of the secondary survey. The second part discusses the control of massive extremity hemorrhage and how to intervene on any airway, breathing, or circulation issue in the trauma bay.

Trauma Resuscitation Part 1- the evaluation

24 min

Being able to run an effective trauma resuscitation is a necessary skill for any emergency medicine provider. In part 1 of this 2 part series, I'll go over how to properly assess a trauma patient who arrives to the ED. We'll go over how to prepare for the patient's arrival, how to perform the primary and secondary surveys, how to make sure we get a good report from the EMS crew, and how to avoid the pitfalls during these first few crucial minutes in the care of a trauma patient. The bonus section is a rant on why you should get your trauma patients off the backboard as soon as possible.

Airway update podcast

19 min

A week ago, I posted an airway review paper by Scott Weingart and Richard Levitan that I think is a must read. Today I decided to do a podcast reviewing the paper in order to really get it out there and talk about the major points. The best part of the paper is the description of the NO DESAT technique which virtually eliminates hypoxia during RSI and will make your next intubation a lot easier. While this podcast is a lot more advanced than the usual "basic" topics that I usually talk about, its important to know about these techniques. My 0.02- they will become the new standard of care in the near future but you can hear about them now.

How to give a good ED patient presentation

29 min

Being able to give a good ED patient presentation will not only help you get a good grade on your EM rotation, it will also make sure that nothing is missed in the patient's care.  In this episode, I'll discuss the nuts and bolts of forming and delivering a solid ED patient presentation that is complete and concise at the same time.  I'll also give a few example presentations so you can put it all together.  The show notes here are condensed down so you can carry them around with you on shift so you don't forget anything.  There is even a card sized version in the show notes for even further portability.  Feel free to take the Word format show notes and re-format them to fit your needs.

Shortness of breath

39 min

Shortness of breath is a chief complaint that we encounter each day in the ED.  This chief complaint encompasses a huge differential and this is a long podcast.  As always, I'll break this chief complaint down into the diagnoses that we can't miss and how to treat the underlying causes of shortness of breath for both kids and adults.

The prehospital episode

14 min

By popular demand, this episode will be dedicated to talking about prehospital issues. I've had several people write me and ask for my 0.02 on how EMS can better be our "eyes and ears" in the field so here's my take on this question. I'll also talk about how the ED staff can better interact with our EMS colleagues so we can both work together to deliver optimal care to our patients. Hopefully this will serve as a starting point for conversations between EMS providers and ED staff and I encourage anyone to post comments on these issues to the blog.

Syncope

31 min

Syncope (or "passing out") is a chief complaint that we deal with a lot in the emergency department. While most causes of syncope are benign and need nothing more than reassurance, we need to be on the lookout for the serious causes of syncope. This episode will focus on the definition of syncope, how to get a complete history, catch the red flags, perform a targeted workup that doesn't keep the patient in the ED forever, and how to scrutinize an EKG for the deadly arrhythmias that we can't miss. In addition, per a request from a podcast listener, there is a bonus section on how to effectively rehydrate patients in the ED. You may be surprised that there are other options besides putting an IV in everyone.

Diabetic Ketoacidosis (DKA)

21 min

This is a topic episode on Diabetic Ketoacidosis (DKA). We'll discuss the diagnosis and treatment of this complex disease process and how to avoid pitfalls that can harm the patient. There will also be tons of clinical pearls including treatment of DKA's cousin Hyperglycemic Hyperosmolar State (HHS) and pediatric DKA considerations. Also, you can now follow EM Basic on Twitter- @embasic for news on the latest episodes and anything else interesting that I find related to emergency medicine. This episode is also the debut of a new microphone setup that gives a much higher audio quality for the podcast.

Altered Mental Status

27 min

This podcast will discuss how to approach the patient with altered mental status. These patient present a special challenge because there are a ton of reasons why a patient may be altered. As always, we'll review the major points in the history and exam, the differential diagnosis, and a few points on management. If you haven't done so already, please fill out the EM Basic survey and check out the results thus far on the website. Also in this episode is a reivew of a new emergency medicine iPhone App (palmEM) and an FYI concerning the last podcast on MI and ACS.

Up next

  1. Nothing queued. Use + Queue on any episode to line it up.

0:00 0:00

Cookies

We set only what the site needs to sign you in and remember your theme. No advertising, no analytics. Read more.