PEM GEMS

Trauma to the chest or abdomen can put you and your patient in a tough spot. This region contains three places where the patient can bleed to death and also lots of prime real estate that doesn't want to be radiated. So how do we know who needs imaging and what imaging do they need? All that and a whole lot more!

From a bump on the head to a high speed accident, head trauma, like kids, comes in all shapes and sizes. Minor head trauma is a Shakespearian dilemma: To CT or not to CT?  Major head trauma is all hands on deck to protect the injured brain. All that plus the pediatric cervical spine!

Traumas, just like kids, come in all shapes and sizes. No matter what, a severely injured child always raises the tension in the ED, regardless of the practice setting. So how do we stay cool when that next kid rolls in? Keep calm and remember our ABCs

Bronchiolitis both keeps the Pediatric ED in business and makes us crazy. We have been studying it for almost a century and the only thing that makes it better is time (or maybe nasal suction). So, if we can't cure it, the only thing left to do, is do what we do best, and figure out who needs to be admitted. Can you name the 5 reasons for admission in a patient with bronchiolitis?

The limiping child is a cunundrum.  Did they just come off a trampoline? Have they had a fever? It's a mixed bag of truamtic and non traumatic conditions.  Come strecth your legs and take a stroll down the peidatric lower extremity as we cover both common and 'can't miss' conditions. Hopefully, I don't put my foot in my mouth.

What should we do with the 2 year old that fell and wont move their arm? Before we just do an "armogram" x-ray, lets stop and think about the weak points in the pediatric arm.  Once we find one of the common fractures, what next?  Splint and refer, sedate and reduce, transfer? 

Age ain't nothin' but a number? You are only as young as you feel?  When it comes to pediatric surgical disease timing really is everything.  Hopefully, you enjoy the rule of six (credit to Dr. Dave Nelson for this) as a framework for the common presentation of abdominal surgical disease in the pediatric patient.

Making the diagnosis of DKA takes about 30 seconds. But before we open up the order set, check some boxes, and send the kid upstairs, let's think about how we can fine-tune our care. What complications do we need to look out for and how can we manage them?  

Pediatric patients presenting with prolonged fever and laboratory signs of inflammation have a broad differential. In addition to the standards, such as viral illness and bacterial infection, we need to consider the inflammatory states of KD, TSS, and the emerging MIS-C. Join us on this journey through the fire and we review these three conditions in a podcast that accompanies a blog post for EMdocs.net 

To people who know me, it will come as no surprise that I love statistics and bad puns.  So have fun streaming this e-piss-ode as we learn about whom to test, how to test, and what to do with the result. We also reveal a PEM GEMS exclusive: Ravera's Spectrum, the Joe Ravera approach to the diagnosis of pediatric UTI.  Hopefully you find this to be liquid gold!