Latest posts

Could a simple cold-water stimulation technique shorten the wait for an infant’s urine sample? This 2017 appraisal of Quick-Wee examines the randomised trial, collection success, uncertain contamination findings and the practical challenge of providing uninterrupted attention in a busy ED.

When clinical findings and test results conflict, how should we rethink a diagnosis? Natalie May uses a case and thought experiments to explore heuristics, cognitive bias and probability, showing why more tests alone cannot resolve uncertainty in emergency medicine.

Could vitamin C, thiamine and steroids transform sepsis care? This 2017 appraisal interrogates a striking before-and-after study, exploring confounding, retrospective data and the risks of adopting an unproven treatment before reliable evidence of benefit and harm is available.

Busy shifts can make eating and drinking feel like an afterthought. Drawing on personal experience, Janos Baombe considers meal preparation, breaks, snacks and hydration, encouraging clinicians to give their own basic needs more attention during the working day.

A selection of trauma papers from 2016–17 explores whole-body CT, traumatic brain injury, coagulopathy, cardiac arrest and airway care. This Trauma Care conference companion weighs findings against study limitations and asks which results might meaningfully change emergency practice.

Does intubation during in-hospital cardiac arrest improve survival? This 2017 appraisal examines a large US registry study that found an association with poorer outcomes, then considers confounding, missing procedural information and why observational data cannot settle the airway decision.