Emergency Medicine/Critical Care Medicine (EM/CCM) Trainees’ Performance on Standardized Critical Care Medicine Examinations: A Ten-Year Review

BackgroundEmergency Medicine/Critical Care Medicine (EM/CCM) trainees may obtain board certification through Internal Medicine (American Board of Internal Medicine [ABIM]), Surgery (American Board of Surgery [ABS]), and Anesthesiology (American Board of Anesthesiology [ABA]). However, EM/CCM trainees experience challenges, including: 1) additional training requirements and 2) an unwillingness to accept EM graduates by many programs.ObjectivesWe sought to: 1) compare EM/CCM knowledge acquisition to medicine (Internal Medicine [IM]/CCM), surgery (surgical critical care [SCC]), and anesthesiology (anesthesiology critical care medicine [ACCM]) Fellows at the local and national level using the Multidisciplinary Critical Care Knowledge Assessment Program (MCCKAP) in-service examination as an objective measure; and 2) compare American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) pass rates for EM/CCM.MethodsSingle-center retrospective analysis comparing scores obtained by EM/CCM on the MCCKAP examination with SCC and ACCM over a 10-year period. Scores are presented as means with standard deviations. We performed similar analysis on ABMS examination pass rates.ResultsThere were 117 MCCKAP scores (37 EM/CCM; 80 SCC and ACCM) evaluated. EM/CCM mean score 562.4 (SD 67.4); SCC and ACCM mean score 505.3, (SD 87.5) at the institutional level (p < 0.001). Similarly, EM/CCM scored higher than the national mean (562.4, SD 67.4 vs. 500 SD 100, p < 0.001). Nationally, ABIM-CCM board certification rate was 91.2% for 137 EM/CCM, compared with 93.2% for IM/CCM (p = 0.22); 28 EM/CCM have obtained ABA-CCM board certification with rates similar to ACCM (90.4 vs. 89.3%; p = 0.85).ConclusionsEM/CCM Fellows demonstrate successful knowledge acquisition both locally and at a national level. EM/CCM achieve ABMS pass rates similar to other CCM trainees. The current arbitrary additional training requirements placed on EM/CCM should be removed.     

Major incidents

A major incident is one that causes casualties on a scale beyond the usual capabilities of the emergency and healthcare services usual ability to manage. Major incident planning and rehearsal is vital to ensuring an appropriate response. Delivery of a major incident response requires command and co-ordination within and between emergency services, hospitals and specialist charitable organizations. Casualty management will require the set up of major incident infrastructure on scene to effectively extricate, triage, treat and transport casualties to appropriate facilities. There is a role for specialist doctors within the pre-hospital phase of managing a major incident, either within the ambulance command structure or operationally. Debrief and reviewing previous major incidents may identify individual, local and systemic factors that could be altered to improve the response to a future incident.     

The T2Bacteria Assay Is a Sensitive and Rapid Detector of Bacteremia That Can Be Initiated in the Emergency Department and Has Potential to Favorably Influence Subsequent Therapy

BackgroundBacteremia causes a major worldwide burden, in terms of financial and productivity costs, as well the morbidity and mortality it can ultimately cause. Proper treatment of bacteremia is a challenge because of the species-dependent response to antibiotics. The T2Bacteria Panel is a U.S. Food and Drug Administration–cleared and culture-independent assay for detection of bacteremia, including common ESKAPE pathogens—Escherichia coli, Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa—and provides species identification in as little as 3.6 h directly from blood.ObjectiveOur aim was to evaluate the T2Bacteria assay performance and potential to affect patient care in the emergency department (ED).MethodsED patients from a Louisiana and Florida center were enrolled as part of the T2Bacteria Panel clinical study, which was prospective and noninterventional. Blood samples for blood culture (BC) and T2Bacteria were matched in time and anatomic location.ResultsData from 137 ED patients were evaluated. Relative to BC, T2Bacteria showed 100% positive percent agreement and 98.4% negative percent agreement. In addition, for species on the T2Bacteria Panel, the T2Bacteria assay detected 25% more positives associated with infection, and on average identified the infectious species 56.6 h faster. The T2Bacteria assay covered 70.5% of all species detected by BC. Finally, relative to actual care, the T2Bacteria assay could have potentially focused therapy in 8 patients, reduced time to a species-directed therapy in 4 patients, and reduced time to effective therapy in 4 patients.ConclusionsIn this ED population, the T2Bacteria assay was a rapid and sensitive detector of bacteremia from common ESKAPE pathogens and showed the theoretical potential to influence subsequent patient therapy, ranging from antibiotic de-escalation to faster time to effective therapy.     

急诊住院医师的教学查房模式

教学查房是床旁教学的一种重要手段,对住院医师进行教学查房能够有效提高住院医师的岗位胜任力和职业能力,培养急诊住院医师的急诊临床思维。近年来由于国家住院医师规范化培训改革在不断深入,对急诊住院医师的教学查房引起了人们的高度关注,然后在实际的急诊住院医师的教学查房中却还存在着诸多问题,教学查房与日常的临床查房概念混淆、教学查房准备不充分、教学查房目的不明确以及教学查房的互动性不强都严重影响了教学查房的质量。因此需要积极探究急诊住院医师的教学查房的有效模式,从而不断提升住院医师的临床实践能力。     

Imaging in noncardiovascular thoracic emergencies: a pictorial review

Cardiovascular and noncardiovascular conditions are commonly encountered in the emergency department. While the majority of patients have underlying cardiovascular aetiologies, such as acute myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, aortic dissection and pulmonary embolism, a small subset of patients have underlying noncardiovascular conditions, although they present with similar symptoms of chest pain, dyspnoea, cough, haemoptysis and haematemesis. This article aims to describe the imaging findings in common noncardiovascular conditions of the chest that are frequently encountered in the emergency department, with a review of the existing literature.