A 67-year-old man known for alcoholic cirrhosis comes in with an upper GI bleed. While you order the appropriate management therapies to control the bleed, one of your colleagues comes in and suggests that you add prophylactic antibiotic coverage to prevent an infectious complication. You have not heard of such a practice and wonder if this should be done routinely in cirrhotic patients presenting with an upper GI bleed. You perform a thorough search of the available literature.
The use of supraglottic airway devices in paediatric cardiac arrest
A two year old has a witnessed cardiopulmonary arrest whilst in your Emergency Department. You are able to ventilate the child using a bag valve mask (BVM) and oral pharyngeal airway, but notice his stomach is becoming inflated. In cardiac arrest in adults you know that a LMA or iGel is now the advised airway to use (ALS guidelines 2011), but you wonder if this could apply to children as well.
A 43 years old man presents to the emergency department with a moderate cellulitis with lymphangitis of the forearm following a trivial skin trauma in the previous days. The patient is not known for any health problem nor does he have any risk factor for CA-MRSA. You wonder if daily intravenous cefazolin following oral probenecid is as effective as two or three times a day intravenous cefazolin treatment.
Platelet Transfusion in Patients with Traumatic Intracranial Hemorrhage on Antiplatelet Therapy
An unconscious 67-year-old male involved in a motor vehicle accident is brought to the emergency departmentby paramedics. The head CT shows a frontal contusion. The patient is on Clopidogrel. You wonder if the antiplatelet therapy reversal with platelet transfusion would improve patient’s survival.
A patient is brought to the Emergency Department with pelvic trauma. One of the members of the trauma team mentions that the new T-POD pelvic binder is better at controlling internal haemorrhage than the traditional wrapped sheet. You wonder if there is any evidence to support this?