Talking to patients and families about chest pain in the Pediatric Emergency Department

By Brad Sobolewski, MD, MEd|2016-12-14T12:56:39-05:00April 11th, 2016|Cardiology|

I just came across this fantastic video from the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center Blog and Cardiologist Nicolas Madsen. Chest pain is a very common presenting symptom in the Pediatric Emergency Department, and families are often very worried about the heart. To quote many a Cardiologist – with some paraphrasing, “It’s not (usually) the heart.”

The video is only five minutes long, and well worth a view. After watching it I suspect you will be able to take several new things back to the bedside to help make your history taking more robust, and enhance your ability to reassure the family, who is often worried about the worst case scenario.

And remember, red flags for chest pain in otherwise health kids include:

Chest pain with activity
Chest pain with syncope

In general, short brief episodes that are reproduced by pressing on the chest wall (i.e. reproducible chest pain) are generally reassuring.

You can follow Dr. Madsen on Twitter @MadsenNicolas

About the Author: Brad Sobolewski, MD, MEd

Brad Sobolewski, MD, MEd is a Professor of Pediatric Emergency Medicine and an Associate Director for the Pediatric Residency Training Program at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. He is on Twitter/X @PEMTweets, on Instagram @BradSobolewski, authors the Pediatric Emergency Medicine site PEMBlog and is the host and creator of PEM Currents: The Pediatric Emergency Medicine Podcast. All views are strictly my own and not official medical advice.