Emergency Medicine

What if the Nativity had unfolded in a modern emergency department? This Christmas 2012 satire reimagines Mary and Joseph's journey through hospital transfers, crowded services and social media, with a resuscitation trolley standing in for the manger.

How should clopidogrel use influence assessment after a head injury? This 2012 journal club examines a prospective cohort study of intracranial bleeding, questioning comparisons with warfarin, patient selection and whether CT findings adequately capture the outcomes that matter to patients.

Simon Carley looks back at the ideas that changed St Emlyn's practice through FOAM in 2012. His personal top ten spans airway management, ultrasound, analgesia and children's medicines, reflecting on how online discussion can challenge established habits and turn learning into action.

Does combining antibiotics improve survival in severe sepsis? This 2012 journal club scrutinises an observational analysis from EduSepsis, exploring differences between treatment groups, confounding and why a reported mortality association does not establish that combination therapy caused the benefit.

How impressive are relative reductions in bleeding when the absolute event rates are small? This 2012 appraisal of newer oral anticoagulants for venous thromboembolism examines a systematic review, the comparison with warfarin and concerns at the time about managing major bleeding.

More scans do not necessarily mean more useful diagnoses. This 2012 journal club examines US trends in CT and MRI for atraumatic headache, questioning coding accuracy, survey extrapolation and what the findings can tell clinicians about assessing an individual patient.