Emergency Medicine Alert articles from May 2003

Emergency Medicine Alert archives from May 2003

Balancing capacity, occupancy key to solving ED overcrowding. (Abstract & Commentary).(emergency department)
May 1, 2003... IF YOU ARE DEALING WITH A PACKED EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT (ED) and waiting room, and wondering why all the changes in the function of your department have not produce better throughput, this article is a must-read for you. This was an observational...

Assessing the need for pain medication in the ED. (Abstract & Commentary).(emergency department)
May 1, 2003... THE OBJECTIVE OF THIS STUDY WAS TO INVESTIGATE the ability of the visual analog scale (VAS) to differentiate between patients with acute painful conditions desiring pain medication and those not desiring medication. In this prospective,...

Bispectral index monitoring in the ED: is there a role? (Abstract & Commentary).(Illustration)
May 1, 2003... BISPECTRAL INDEX (BIS) MONITORING MAKES USE OF a noninvasive device to measure electroencephalographic (EEG) data. Two sensor patches placed on the forehead transmit EEG data to a small computer. The data is converted to a BIS score, a...

Severe malaria--nail it before it nails you. (Abstract & Commentary).
May 1, 2003... INFECTION WITH PLASMODIUM FALCIPARUM 1S RESPONSIble for more than 5000 deaths every day, predominantly among African children. Yet with modern air transportation, severe malaria easily is transported worldwide during its two-week incubation...

Pharmacology update: atypical antipsychotics. (Special Feature).
May 1, 2003... ANTIPSYCHOTICS AGENTS ARE A DIVERSE CLASS OF drugs used to treat both psychiatric and nonpsychiattic conditions. The latter include control of nausea and emesis; pain and nausea reduction in various headache syndromes; chemical restraint of...

Pysician CME questions.
May 1, 2003... 36. All of the following statements regarding the study about the visual scale (VAS)for pain are true, except: a. The VAS consists of a 100-mm line without marking and has "No pain at all" on the far left and "Severe, uncontrolled pain" on...

Pulmonary artifact.
May 1, 2003... Clinical Scenario: The 12-lead ECG and rhythm strip shown in the Figure was obtained from a 67-year-old man with longstanding pulmonary disease who was admitted to the hospital for an exacerbation of this underlying condition. Computerized...