Longitudinal spine ultrasound with linear array probe Also known as a “spinal tap,” a lumbar puncture is used to diagnose life-threatening diseases, administer medications, and measure intracranial pressure. An estimated 360,000 of these procedures are performed annually in the U.S.…
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A lumbar puncture headache often develops after a patient undergoes a lumbar puncture or spinal tap procedure.  Lumbar punctures with CSF analysis are often used to diagnose conditions such as meningitis, encephalitis, leukemia, autoimmune diseases, normal pressure hydrocephalus, benign intracranial…
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The number of bacterial meningitis cases is over 1.2 million each year while 1 in 10 people who have it may die from the infection despite receiving treatment. Bacterial meningitis is an extremely serious and life-threatening condition requiring prompt diagnosis.…
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Critical emergency skills are an important tool in a healthcare provider’s arsenal. They must be able to safely perform emergency procedures to save lives when faced with a critical situation.  However, once they finish their studies and training, many physicians…
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Delays to hospital inpatient admission in excess of five hours from arrival at an Emergency Department (ED) lead to a mortality rate of 8.71%. This increases by another 8% in cases where admission is delayed beyond six to eight hours. …
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Lumbar punctures (LPs) are a common medical procedure that is used to collect cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) to diagnose and manage neurological illnesses. Here, we delve into the results of a new study on the safety of LPs for patients undergoing…
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Fever can be a serious complication in infants aged three months or younger.  Immediate medical intervention is necessary to treat the possible infection, although clinical evaluation can be quite a conundrum. This is because there’s no way of knowing what…
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For procedures involving lumbar punctures , sonographically guided lumbar punctures (SGLPs) have a higher propensity of being chosen when dealing with obese patients. This is based on findings of a randomized controlled trial conducted in 2007. The main takeaway from…
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A Continuing Medical Education (CME) Course is designed for doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician associates and other healthcare professionals who want to learn more about certain topics in medicine.  The primary goal of CME is to improve the quality of…
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The emergency room (ER) is an essential area of any hospital because it often deals with life-and-death situations. How medical personnel respond significantly affects the prognosis of patients who are in need of urgent care.  As a medical professional, experience…
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For decades the mantra for procedural education in medicine has been “see one-do one-teach one”.  Those of us who learned bedside procedures and point-of-care ultrasound by this model understand that this approach does not optimize safe and competent performance.   At…
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A recent article summarizes a cross-sectional survey aimed at determining the processes in place to assess the procedural competency of academic emergency medicine attendings.[i] The survey was sent to the 39 ACGME-accredited Emergency Medicine programs in the U.S. and had…
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Simulation-based procedural training has been shown to improve procedural competence, safety, operator confidence and most importantly patient safety for every bedside procedure studied.  Now, a new systematic review and meta-analysis confirms that simulation-based training in airway management improves procedural competence…
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This blog summarizes the 2019 Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) for Periprocedural Management of Image-guided Procedures with regards to thrombocytopenia, coagulopathies, antiplatelets and anticoagulation.  The SIR guidelines are summarized as follows: Anticoagulation with heparin, LMWH, fondaparinux, argatroban, warfarin, DOAC, clopidogrel, ticagrelor…
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