Thursday, March 28, 2019

Code Scooter

Image Credit: Pexels
Author: Jake Toy, DO
AAEM/RSA Publications & Social Media Committee Chair
Originally published: Common Sense March/April 2019

It’s 2:00am on a Friday night in your emergency department. A trauma call goes out. Twenty-four-yearold male with head trauma and multiple extremity abrasions after suspected electric scooter (e-scooter) accident. Agitated. Suspected intoxication… If you’re rotating or working in an urban center, trauma runs with this mechanism may already be a daily norm.

Thursday, March 21, 2019

Anatomical Review of Jugular Central Line Placement

Image Source: Wikipedia
This post was peer reviewed.
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Authors:
Benjamin Mogni, MS-IV
Medical Student
University of Kentucky College of Medicine

Terren Trott, MD
Critical Care Fellow
Cooper Hospital University

Jugular venous catheters allow for central administration of medications, frequent blood draws and central venous sampling. While standard of care for placement of central venous catheters (CVCs) involves ultrasound guidance, physicians should be aware of the traditional landmark approach to line placement. This means having a detailed knowledge of the anterior and posterior triangles of the neck, specifically the division of the sternocleidomastoid into the clavicular and sternal heads, as shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2. This review will summarize the anatomy involved in the placement of a jugular venous catheter and possible complications.

Thursday, March 14, 2019

2018-19 AAEM/RSA Medical Student Scholarship Winners Share Why They Are Choosing EM

Author: Jordan Neichelle Powell
University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry

RSA is proud to share the following essay from one of the 2018-2019 Medical Student Scholarship winners, Jordan Neichelle Powell. We felt this essay best exemplified why she is choosing EM as a specialty. Congratulations, Jordan!

One cold winter night during a pediatric emergency medicine (EM) shift I had the pleasure of taking care of a nine-year-old girl with what I thought would be a typical sick visit during the winter season. Upon informing the parent and the child that she would soon be discharged, she stopped me before leaving the room. She informed me that she had a secret to tell me. As I approached her bedside, she timorously shared that she has never seen someone that looked like her take care of her. I remained silent since the words that so easily flowed from her mouth were not what I was expecting. She then shared that she wanted to be a doctor just like me one day. Experiencing sudden shock, I also felt a sense of humbling warmth. Before I left her I hugged her and whispered back in her ear that she could be anything that she wanted to be. That moment, is one of many that constantly remind me of why I went into medicine and decided to pursue Emergency Medicine as my specialty. This specialty not only allows me to be a positive influence on those underrepresented in the community but has also been an opportunity to learn from and advocate for patients as well. It can be something as small as representation and letting a little girl know that she too can be whatever she wants to be; or, on a larger scale, making sure that a patient knows that they are safe, heard, and cared for.

Thursday, March 7, 2019

2018-19 AAEM/RSA Medical Student Scholarship Winners Share Why They Are Choosing EM

Author: Abdullah Faiq
Howard College of Medicine

RSA is proud to share the following essay from one of the 2018-2019 Medical Student Scholarship winners, Abdullah Faiq. We felt this essay best exemplified why they are choosing EM as a specialty. Congratulations, Abdullah!

As I stitched my patient’s last sutures, drawing his eyebrows back into alignment, I turned my attention to his visibly relieved wife. “Don’t worry, he’ll be as handsome as he was yesterday.” She laughed, complimented my work, and insisted her husband take a selfie for the kids. A few hours earlier, he had been in a life-threatening car accident, arriving as a code yellow with 1.5L of blood loss. I lifted the suture mat off his face and saw him smile for the first time. It was 3AM, I felt present and focused, and there was no place I would rather have been.