Brit Long

Clinical decision rules (CDRs) are everywhere in medicine today. They were developed to improve our decision-making capability. We are constantly under stress to improve throughput and diagnostic capabilities. CDRs are appealing in that they strive to take murky, unclear variables and change them into a structured tool or assessment. They can potentially take more factors into account than the typical physician at the bedside and give consistent results if applied appropriately.

Cerebral Venous Thrombosis (CVT) is a rare but emergent cause of headache. It is a difficult diagnosis to make due to a wide variety of symptoms. This article reviews the etiology, risk factors and symptoms of CVT. Imaging and treatment regimens are also discussed.

Having difficulty deciding between procedural sedation agents in your pediatric patients? Read on: we provide a focused review of commonly utilized medications, with tips and tricks on how to cater your personal sedation practice to the clinical scenario.

How do you interpret quantitative capnography waveforms? We own the resuscitation of critically ill patients, and with boarding increasing in EDs, we need to know how to interpret waveforms. This instrument can provide a great deal of important information if properly understood.

Pulmonary embolism (PE) is a disease process associated with significant morbidity and mortality. The benefits of thrombolytics for massive PE has been established in the literature. But what does the evidence say about the use of thrombolytics for submassive PE? What are the current guidelines and recommendations? As emergency physicians how should we apply the current evidence for the use of thrombolytics in submassive PE?

Acute vision loss has a wide differential, and some of these conditions can cause permanent visual deficit. Many of these are time-sensitive, and the emergency physician may improve patient outcome through the consideration of several acute conditions. This post seeks to provide an overview of the evaluation of vision loss in the ED and a summary of several common conditions.

The transient ischemic attack (TIA) places patients at high risk for future stroke. This article reviews the current literature on the diagnosis, management and disposition of patients with TIA. The use of observation and TIA clinics is also discussed.

What else should we be thinking about when a patient with a history of recurrent vomiting presents to the emergency department with the same chief complaint today…

A stroke mimic is defined as a nonvascular disease that presents with stroke-like symptoms, often indistinguishable from an actual stroke. Why does it matter if a mimic is diagnosed as a stroke? Learn the pearls and pitfalls of stroke mimics.

The new, updated sepsis definitions have been released. What are the changes, and what should you know?