Search St Emlyn’s

Should severely injured patients receive an early vena cava filter when anticoagulant thromboprophylaxis is initially unsuitable? Dan Horner examines a 2019 randomised trial, weighing its main outcome, subgroup findings and potential harms before considering what it means for trauma care.

Simon Carley brings together ten trauma papers and resources for the 2019 TraumaUK conference. The selection spans prehospital plasma, airway management, resuscitation, head injury, emergency laparotomy and paediatric splenic injury, ending with the Zero Point Survey and preparation before resuscitation begins.

What should emergency clinicians ask when an adult with congenital heart disease attends the ED? This 2019 introduction explores altered anatomy, previous repairs and acute presentations, emphasising patients’ knowledge, specialist-team involvement and resources for further learning rather than offering a comprehensive management guide.

Salim Rezaie’s St Emlyn’s Live 2018 presentation explores cognitive offloading during cardiac arrest care. The accompanying notes discuss CPR, vascular access, airway management, medication and PEA assessment, explicitly bringing together published evidence and ideas for consideration. This is a historical presentation rather than an updated resuscitation guideline.

Welcome to the ECG Library at St. Emlyn’s. Please use the following links to see example ECGs on common problems in emergency medicine and critical care. We are indebted to […]

What does ‘massive’ pulmonary embolism really tell us about a patient’s risk? In this case-based 2018 review, Dan Horner examines physiology, clot burden, clinical trajectory and bleeding risk, arguing for a fuller assessment and shared decisions rather than reliance on a single blood-pressure threshold.

Day two of EMSSA 2017 moves from resuscitation and paediatric trauma to emergency care in low-resource settings. This collaborative report brings together sessions on knowledge translation, snakebite and malaria, alongside discussions of bullying, staff safety and the ethics of volunteering.

A 2017 ResusFriday session uses simulation and shared learning to examine cardiac arrest care, including team roles, reversible causes and dual-axis defibrillation. The post explains why enthusiasm for the latter needed to be tempered by the limited evidence available then.

Could erythropoietin protect the brain after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest? This 2016 appraisal examines a French randomised trial that found no neurological or survival advantage and more adverse events, including thromboembolism, highlighting the gap between biological promise and demonstrated patient benefit.

Iain Beardsell and Simon Carley discuss syncope in this emergency medicine induction podcast. The accompanying notes and transcript explore how to distinguish a faint from other causes of collapse, use the history and ECG to identify concerning features, and consider medication, follow-up and senior advice.