#FOAMed

Could a follow-up phone call reduce return visits after a child leaves the emergency department? This 2014 appraisal examines a Canadian study in which callers collected concerns without answering them, questioning allocation methods, outcome measurement and whether reattendance alone can tell us that care was better or worse.

Iain Beardsell and neurointensive care consultant John Hell discuss diffuse axonal injury in this 2014 podcast. Using a hypothetical injured cyclist, they explore the underlying mechanisms, why initial imaging may reveal little, the evolution of secondary injury and the difficulty of predicting recovery for an individual patient.

A round-up from the final day of the College of Emergency Medicine’s 2014 Exeter conference. Short talk summaries cover traumatic cardiac arrest, major trauma in older people and traumatic bleeding, alongside reflections on how freely shared conference resources can extend learning beyond those attending in person.

Short video summaries from the opening day of the College of Emergency Medicine’s 2014 Exeter conference. The selection spans emergency airway management, clinical judgement, FOAMed, temperature management after cardiac arrest, sepsis, stroke and blood gas testing, sharing speakers’ reflections shortly after their presentations.

Rick Body introduces his SMACC Gold 2014 talk, ‘The Heart Under Stress’, on using history, examination and troponin testing when assessing possible acute coronary syndrome. The accompanying post also reflects on turning research into an engaging conference presentation, with storytelling and humour alongside the clinical discussion.

In this 2014 guest post, Mark Wilson explains the origins of GoodSAM: connecting nearby trained responders with emergencies before an ambulance arrives. He describes the thinking behind the app, its early defibrillator mapping and questions about responder participation, registration and indemnity during the project’s development.