Critical Care

How do we make decisions when time is short and information incomplete? This introduction to St Emlyn’s first e-book brings together risk, probability and metacognition, explaining why thinking about our thinking matters in emergency medicine.

How much does delay matter when giving tranexamic acid? This 2017 journal club examines individual patient data from CRASH-2 and WOMAN, exploring the relationship between treatment timing and bleeding deaths, the size of the benefit and the analysis’s limitations.

A 2017 conversation with the #bad_EM team explores African emergency medicine, shared learning and plans for the 2018 festival conference near Cape Town. The accompanying post considers why locally relevant FOAMed and support for African delegates matter.

Should patients without ST elevation undergo early coronary angiography after cardiac arrest? This 2017 review examines mortality and neurological outcomes, then challenges the impressive apparent benefit by considering selection bias, retrospective studies and the limited randomised evidence available at the time.

This 2017 introduction explains tetanus, immunisation history and the assessment of wounds in the emergency department. It also discusses recognising clinical tetanus, but explicitly flags that UK management guidance has changed and directs readers to a later update.

Does routine oxygen improve outcomes in suspected acute coronary syndromes? This 2017 appraisal of DETO2X-SWEDEHEART examines its patient selection, unexpectedly low event rate and mortality findings, explaining why a non-significant result does not establish that two treatments are equivalent.