TOTAL EM - Tools Of the Trade and Academic Learning in Emergency Medicine

By now you may have heard of a potential breakthrough in COVID-19 treatment: dexamethasone. The steroid is well known and has been widely used. It is inexpensive and readily available making it a great choice if it proves to be successful. However, do we really have the evidence yet to support its use?

Law enforcement has used tear gas and pepper spray to help with crowd control. Many of those exposed will require some form of treatment. This post is meant to help provide some guidance in regards to the treatment of such injuries.

Given recent events and a longstanding concern for certain restraint positions causing positional asphyxia, we took the time to dive into this subject more by discussing how and why this occurs along with the surrounding evidence.

We have made it! Another milestone to celebrate. 200 podcasts down and (hopefully) many more to come. The format continues to change, but we hope to provide many great discussions and continue to educate as much as possible. The goal moving forward is to continue to provide high quality content.

We celebrate another anniversary with this podcast. This podcast marks the 200th one! With every 50th podcast, we invite back Ken Milne from The SGEM. When trying to decide what to discuss this time, Ken suggested we discuss the Peltzman Effect. If you are not familiar, no problem! Ken breaks it down for us and how it is applied to medicine, including the current COVID-19 pandemic.

We had an excellent opportunity that we had to turn into a video podcast. The roundtable discussion is with Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City staff: a physician (Dr. McCarty), a PA (Matt), and a RN (Christina). They cover their ED's response and how each of them took on new roles to better manage patients in this challenging time. Their tips and tricks are worth listening to, especially if you have not yet seen a surge of patients.

Adrian Banning is back as our guest host this week. Once again, she did a stellar job and performed a very interesting interview with David Allen. As demonstrated on his Instagram account, he has become internationally renowned for his work as a tattoo artist. He focuses most of his work on mastectomy scar coverage. He has been published on JAMA and has been a speaker for medical conferences. The unique skills and experiences have contributed to the discussion of this podcast.

Adrian Banning is acting as the host this week (and did a fantastic job!). She interviewed Katherine (Katie) Thompson from IPV Educators regarding domestic violence surrounding the changes with COVID-19 and how we can still help these patients.

If you have been to a healthcare facility recently or work in a hospital, chances are you have been screened as soon as you got to that location. Sometimes, you are even screened prior to arrival. The same strategies are being proposed to help us return to our "normal" lives. While this may seem like a beneficial strategy, there is a significant problem with these screening protocols.

We are in a point of time where information is incredibly easy to access. We also have the convenience to be able to rapidly share information. We are also in a crisis from a pandemic. We as a whole are in a dangerous situation where misinformation, rumors, and bias can play a major part in hurting ourselves, our loved ones, and the world as a whole.