This episode of PEM Currents tackles a bread and butter issue in Pediatric Emergency Medicine, the newborn with fever. I discuss management, specifically how it differs for babies under 28 days of age as well as when to get labs and how to interpret them. I also reference procalcitonin, and touch on its emerging role. Read more here. You can [...]
Allow me to propose a new holiday - July 1st is now Medical New Year's Day. Yes, it's true that many training programs start before July 1st with orientation - or even clinical work as is the case where I work, but nevertheless, July is a time for new beginnings, whether for new interns, fellows or medical students. With this changing [...]
The next video in the Art of Medicine series focuses on how to talk with parents about simple febrile seizures. These can be incredibly scary, but fortunately the prognosis is almost uniformly great. Let me know what other topics you'd like to see in this series.
This post will just scratch the surface in its exploration of the diagnosis and management of corneal abrasions. What is the best technique for getting the fluorescin into the eye? First of all, please don't jab the patient's eye with the fluorescin strip itself. You can actually cause a corneal abrasion that way. In the past I would drip the [...]
This post was written by Meredith Posner Shuch, a senior resident at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center as a component of the Emergency Department Procedure Elective. Digital nerve blocks provide anesthesia for many procedures in the ED, including finger lacerations, paronychia drainage, finger reductions, and nail bed repairs [1]. Most of us are familiar with the traditional digital nerve block [...]
This past Friday night I was honored to accept the Division Teaching Award for Emergency Medicine on behalf of my colleagues. Every year the residents at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center vote and single out one division for excellence in teaching. It has been an absolute pleasure working with the graduating residents over these past few years. I will miss their [...]
PEM Currents, the Pediatric Emergency Medicine podcast returns today with an episode focusing on upper GI bleeds. Serious UGI bleeds - you know, the ones with shock, massive transfusions and more - are fortunately rare in the Pediatric Emergency Department. However, there is a growing population of patients with chronic diseases that can lead to portal hypertension, varies and other [...]
You'll see all sorts of things in the Emergency Department - sometimes the concern is related to the appearance of bodily fluids. You will, at one point or another, undoubtedly encounter parental concerns about the potential presence of blood in the diaper of a newborn. As you could imagine this is potentially scary. In the included image you will note [...]
This is not something that any of us wants to evaluate in the Emergency Department, but it is a necessary part of the job. First, look for suspicious or atypical bruises: A case control study of 95 PICU trauma patients under the age of 4 showed that: Bruises on the torso, ear, or neck for a child ≤4 years of [...]
This is the first video in the ongoing Art of Medicine series common . The goal is these videos is to share a demonstration of how I would talk to parents about common conditions encountered in the Emergency Department. I could think of no better topic than mild to moderate croup without stridor at erst. In less than 4 minutes you [...]
