December 2018

These are the top articles from 2018.

By testing your knowledge of what we covered in December, you lock the information into long term memory effortlessly.

The newest AHA guidelines address the evaluation and management of bradycardia and conduction disorders. This includes sinus node dysfunction, AV blocks, and bundle branch blocks.  Here’s what you need to know as an emergency physician.

Low dose ketamine did not reduce overall pain or opioid use in this study of patients with rib fractures. However, for severely injured patients with ISS>15, ketamine allowed patients to achieve the same level of pain control with significantly less opioid medication.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors are monoclonal antibodies that block inhibitors of T-cell activation and function. They are increasingly used in different malignancies by removing inhibition of T-cell function and have an array of toxic side effects you need to know.

Don’t miss this HEART score rendition of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. Happy Holidays!

Wearing a parachute vs an empty backpack had no impact on mortality or injury severity in select jumpers from an airplane. Use caution when extrapolating this to higher altitude jumps, i.e. those over 2 feet.

We want to feature great free medical education #FOAMed resources from around the web. One I learned of this week is called Visualmed. It is run by a third year IM resident at UConn, Usama Nasir. It takes key RCTs and turns them into infographics.

Topical antibiotic use for bacterial conjunctivitis was associated with improved rate of clinical cure compared to placebo. For early and late clinical cure with topical antibiotics, the NNT was 9 and 11, respectively.

Video laryngoscopy improved first-pass success over direct laryngoscopy when intubating during cardiac arrest, 78% vs 70%, respectively.