Management of Upper Airway Obstruction
Is 5 Days of Penicillin For Strep Pharyngitis Enough?
A 5-day course of penicillin was non-inferior to a 10-day course for group A streptococcal pharyngitis.
What’s the Right Pediatric ETT Size?
The pediatric trachea is elliptical at the infraglottic level, with the transverse diameter being narrowest. The endotracheal tube size formula, (age/4) + 3.5, with a cuffed tube makes more sense anatomically.
Coding Bias for “Sinusitis” to Justify Antibiotic Prescribing
Physicians who wrote for the most antibiotics were also the ones who diagnosed sinusitis most often. To justify writing for an antibiotic, there was a coding bias to call it “sinusitis” when in fact, it probably was just a cold.
TXA vs Packing for Epistaxis
Intranasal tranexamic acid with nasal compression was as effective as Merocel nasal packing for bleeding cessation in anterior epistaxis, had a lower rebleeding rate, and was better tolerated than nasal packing.
Lemierre’s Syndrome – Sore Throat Gone Wrong
Sometimes sore throat isn’t just sore throat - it could be a life threatening complication. Learn about Lemierre’s syndrome with this quick-hitter teaching case from NEJM.
Is Pharyngitis in the Eye of the Beholder?
Interrater agreement on whether a child’s throat was red or not was “fair” (aka…pretty bad), although agreement was significantly better when grading tonsillar hypertrophy.
Do Nasal Vasoconstrictors Raise BP?
In patients without a history of hypertension, use of intranasal vasoconstrictors did not significantly increase blood pressure compared to placebo.
How to Sew Like a Pro
Suturing of facial lacerations by novice physicians resulted in less cosmetically favorable repair in follow up than experienced physicians.
Where Will You Cut the Neck? POCUS Makes Perfect
Practicing to find the midpoint of the cricothyroid membrane with ultrasound is a much better way to learn than by using only external landmarks and no ultrasound.