Latest posts

The St Emlyn's team look back on 2021: clinical work, pandemic research, teaching and life beyond medicine. Personal reflections sit alongside favourite books, music and podcasts, with thoughts on connection, learning and the year ahead.

How should emergency care respond when demand exceeds available resources? Drawing on civilian and military experience, Simon Horne explores the tension between capacity and quality, arguing for honest priorities, less low-value activity and reliable delivery of the best care resources allow.

Writing in December 2021, Liz Crowe reflects on what the loss of physical touch during COVID-19 meant for patients, staff and families. She explores touch, wellbeing and ways to preserve compassion and connection when infection precautions limit contact.

Iain's November 2021 podcast round-up explores storytelling in medical education, airway management in the emergency department and the use of pigtail catheters for haemothorax. The accompanying notes link to these posts and earlier wellbeing episodes.

Can newer CT scanners reliably exclude subarachnoid haemorrhage beyond six hours? This 2021 appraisal examines a retrospective study, focusing on patient selection, uncertain symptom timings and why cumulative sensitivity figures may not answer the emergency clinician's question.

A 2021 review of pulse oximetry accuracy in patients assessed for ECMO. It examines differences in unrecognised hypoxaemia between reported racial groups, the limitations of retrospective data and why skin pigmentation needs more precise investigation than broad racial classifications allow.