A review of bread and butter Emergency Medicine topics
You decide to take a break from the city and moonlight in a small rural hospital. You think you’ll be chilling for the night seeing urinary tract infections, or maybe you’ll finally see that snake bite you never thought you’d see. The night starts off slowly with a steady stream Read more…
What if you woke up in a hospital and found out your mortal enemy had surgically removed your face and glued it onto his own and now he was out in the world pretending to be you? Living your life, hanging with all your friends, doing all your drugs, having all your fun? You’d Read more…
It’s Monday morning in the ED, and to your greatest surprise, it’s been quiet for a few hours. You are a bit too superstitious to say anything out loud, but you are pretty excited. In fact you are so excited, with a bit too much time on your hands, so Read more…
Over the Memorial Day weekend, I was so bored I binge watched the Rocky anthology. My favorite movie of the anthology is Rocky IV, not just because of the way he boxed, but mostly because he may have single-handedly ended the Cold War with this speech. Who knew that many Read more…
By Surriya Ahmad and Kylie Birnbaum It’s a busy night in the Springfield ED. You’ve just treated Lisa for a pneumothorax after she played her sax too hard, and you’ve treated her brother Bart for a laceration from skating too hard. You also treated Mr. Burns for narcissistic personality disorder! Read more…
Dr. McCallister, an ED physician, thinks back to his childhood. Remember when I almost killed those two burglars when I got lost in New York? I should reach out to them. And why did I keep getting left places? Were my parents, like, super negligent? I never talked to them about that. Man, that Read more…
You’re sitting in the peds ED, and just about done with the 10th URI you’ve seen all day. You’ve got the sniffles from those cute coughing babies, and you’ve been getting through the day on just those “free” pedialyte icee’s and apple juice, so you’re a bit delirious. You start Read more…
An unknown young male makes his way into the critical care area of your emergency department on a boring night. He is minimally responsive and is breathing at a very slow rate. You look at his pupils, and they are pinpoint. You see track marks up and down his arms. Read more…
It’s always a balancing act of knowing when to eat on shift. You’re hypoglycemic, but you just saw a patient with gastroenteritis. You’ve got to wash your hands and grab a quick snack before you syncopize or get gastro! On a particularly busy shift, I was starting to see spots Read more…
A 40 year-old man presents to your ED with ankle pain. He rolled his ankle while engaged in various slapstick shenanigans involving snow storms, public transportation, and an overweight man who at first seemed oafish and ignorant, but in the end showed himself to be emotionally intelligent, leading our patient to realize that it Read more…