December 2018

The modified Philadelphia criteria had high enough sensitivity to rule out invasive bacterial infection in infants 29-60 days old without obtaining CSF. No infants 29-60 days old who were classified as low risk had bacterial meningitis.

Don’t be falsely reassured if the appendix is not visualized on ultrasound in children, especially in boys, those with an elevated total WBC count, or elevated absolute neutrophil count.

Most younger children 5-7 years old recover from concussion within 2 weeks. More than 80% of children 8-12 years old and boys 13-18 years old recover within 4 weeks. Most teen girls had not recovered by week 12.

Double sequential defibrillation means hooking up two external defibrillators and discharging them simultaneously in patients with refractory ventricular fibrillation (v-fib). What could possibly go wrong?

Evidence for a low salt diet in patients with congestive heart failure (CHF) isn’t strong or conclusive. Advising a strict, low-salt diet may still be the right advice, but we just don’t have much evidence to guide us.

It is important to see how trauma surgery has evolved regarding abdominal stab wounds. Know their algorithm, especially the caveats and when not send patients home.

Targeted temperature management (TTM) still requires active cooling to 36°C and meticulous avoidance of hyperthermia. Becoming lax in this may be associated with increased mortality.

The HEART score had high pooled diagnostic accuracy for predicting short term major adverse coronary events.

Be sure you know the formal word on the workup and treatment of NSTEMI for emergency physicians. We want to give patients a quick, safe workup and reduce the risk of short-term major adverse coronary event.

That’s right - I will be your guide into the wonderful world of odds ratios. The good thing about having an idiot for a guide is that I have to make it simple to understand it myself, which means, hopefully, you will understand it as well.