Emergency Medicine

Iain Beardsell and Simon Carley discuss opioid overdose in this 2015 podcast and written review. They examine recognition beyond stereotyped presentations, resuscitation, the challenges of naloxone reversal and ongoing monitoring, while also considering co-ingestion, complications and patients’ wider mental health and social needs.

How can emergency clinicians keep up with research without being overwhelmed? This 2015 guide explains the team’s approaches to personalised PubMed alerts, journal and topic searches, RSS readers and shared coverage with colleagues, while emphasising that online appraisals should support reading the original literature.

What can a long-running intubation registry tell us about airway care in the emergency department? This 2015 journal club examines Scottish data on intubation success, collaboration with anaesthetists and training, while considering missing records and the limitations of combining practice across fourteen years.

A 2015 review of acute otitis media in children, exploring diagnosis, pain relief and the balance of benefits and harms from antibiotics. The article discusses immediate, delayed and no-antibiotic approaches, communication with families and the importance of recognising unwell children, complications and additional risk factors.

Which balance of plasma, platelets and red cells should be used in major traumatic haemorrhage? This 2015 appraisal of the PROPPR trial examines mortality, haemostasis and deaths from bleeding, considering study power and the practical challenges of interpreting the results for transfusion protocols.

Karim Brohi discusses vascular injury in a short podcast recorded at the 2014 London Trauma Conference. The accompanying introduction highlights recognising the ischaemic injured limb, questioning assumptions about hard and soft signs, and the role of interventional radiology in major trauma care.