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  • Blog

The Importance of Debrief

This was originally published as part of the medical student iBook. We’ve reproduced it here with some additions as we think it’s great, and as much as this is written from a medical student perspective, it could be a new FY2 or a new nurse - or an old hand. 
  • Blog

Coughing, Wheezy and Stridulous Children

Children with noisy or difficult breathing often present to the Emergency Department (ED). The acuity of these patients varies, but any of the conditions that cause respiratory symptoms can be life threatening
  • Blog

Metabolic Babies in the ED.. Easy As 1.. 2.. 3

Inborn errors of metabolism (IEMs) are disorders of chemical pathways. These diseases led to dangerous deficiencies or excesses of chemicals.
  • Blog

Delivering Bad News

This blog aims to introduce some concepts around bad or difficult news, link to some structures for delivering bad news, and hopefully stimulate some further thoughts and discussions.
  • Blog

Paediatric heart murmurs & what to make of them

Children are often found to have a heart murmur when seen in the Emergency Department, but when does a heart murmur actually mean something?
  • Blog

Floating in the Face of Danger: MaxFax injuries in the ED

This blog discusses the preparation, assessment and management of the patients presenting with maxillofacial injuries.
  • Blog

Abdominal Pain in Children

Abdominal pain is a common presentation in paediatrics-increasing as the child gets older. Hopefully, this blog will serve as a guide of what to look for, when to refer and when to worry!
  • Blog

Lumbar Spine Injuries in Adult Trauma

Poor old lumbar spine – it does a lot of the heavy lifting for the body but probably doesn’t get anywhere near the attention of the cervical spine when it comes to trauma.
  • Blog

PEM and ex-Prems

Advances in neonatal care have resulted in more ex-prems being discharged into the community, and these fragile neonates tend to be ‘frequent fliers’.
  • Blog

Informed Consent

The legal aspects of Emergency Medicine can be difficult and often a trainee spends less time reading about these, unless a specific situation arises in work.
  • Blog

Risk-taking in the ED

Let’s Talk About Risk
  • Blog

Ecstasy

Class A drug in the UK - illegal to possess, give away or sell. Possession can be punished with 7 years in jail.
  • Blog

Pertussis

It’s happening again. Paediatrics - moving from one infectious disease to the next. It feels like we are only just peeling down the posters from the measles outbreak, when we are putting up the pertussis one.
  • Blog

PEM Headaches

Headaches are one of the most common presentations to the ED and may be primary or secondary. We want to help you differentiate between those benign ones that just require simple analgesia and reassurance, and those that require further investigation.
  • Blog

Royal College of Emergency Medicine: Improving Culture – Change Begins with Me

This blog starts to explore workplace culture. What is culture? Why is culture so hard to change? What can I do about it?
  • Blog

Frailty

Frailty top ten
  • Blog

Cardiac Arrest in the Pregnant Patient

Cardiac arrest in pregnancy is a potential presentation to the emergency department. If it happens, you are likely to be cognitively overloaded.
  • Blog

Paediatric Wound Management – When It has to be Sutures

In the past, paediatric lacerations requiring sutures often required admission and a general anaesthetic for wound closure. This blog looks at how we can provide timely, cost effective and acceptable management in the ED that avoids this paradigm.
  • Blog

Toxicology

You've just arrived for your first ED shift, excited to be allocated to resus. The red phone rings. A 45-year-old female, amitriptyline overdose, P120, BP85/45, GCS 5, ETA 5 minutes.
  • Blog

Behaviours that Challenge

As emergency medicine clinicians you’ll be used to patients with behaviours that are really challenging. Did you know that there’s an actual definition of this?
  • Blog

The Curious Incident of the Barking Cough in the Night Time: Croup in the ED

Once you have heard the classic “croupy” cough, you won’t forget it.
  • Blog

A child with a fever

Febrile children compete for the most common non-traumatic paediatric presentation in the ED, causing concern for parents worldwide. Your mission: to find the source.
  • Blog

Pictures of Health

In this blog, we've collated all our infographics, and some pictures, around mental health in the ED. We hope that the pictures will spark your curiosity, and you'll delve further into the original resource for further learning.
  • Blog

Recognising Paediatric Sepsis

Early recognition and treatment of sepsis in children is crucial as progression to organ failure and shock is often very rapid.

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