Induction – Chest Pain in the ED

Chest pain is the archetypal ED presentation: one which presents frequently and usually has a benign cause, but could, just could, be the result of life threatening pathology. As Emergency Physicians we must look after these patients well and make sound decisions about their investigations and treatment and in this podcast Simon and I endeavour to give an introduction to how to approach them.

Using our EM maxim of “Rule Out the Worst Case Scenario” we have to actively rule out the potentially serious causes first and we would encourage you to approach these five systematically, using a focused history, examination and investigation to cross them off your differential diagnosis list:

Acute Coronary Syndrome
• Pulmonary Embolus
• Pneumonia
• Pneumothroax
• Aortic Disssection

Clearly each of these conditions are deserving of a blogpost or podcast on their own and that exactly what we are working on now. For now we need to concentrate on the classical features of each, whilst bearing in mind that the reason EM is so fascinating is that the patients don’t tend to read the textbooks (or listen to podcasts).

Unsurprisingly there are lots of excellent resources on this topic available and these are just a few we would encourage you to explore

RCEM Learning – Induction – Chest Pain

BMJ Learning (requires log in or Athens) Chest Pain of recent origin – assessment and diagnosis: in association with NICE

LITFL Chest Pain

Cite this article as: Iain Beardsell, "Induction – Chest Pain in the ED," in St.Emlyn's, November 29, 2014, https://www.stemlynsblog.org/induction-chest-pain/.

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