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  • Blog

Confidentiality, Capacity and Consent in PEM

It’s Friday evening and you’re at work in the ED (where else would you rather be??). Jack is a 15-year-old boy who has taken an overdose of paracetamol a couple of hours ago. He texted his girlfriend soon after and she called an ambulance.
  • SAQ

Acute Psychosis

A 19-year-old man presents to the emergency department with paranoid delusions.
  • SAQ

Managing a serious incident

It is Monday morning 09.00hrs and you are checking your email inbox. You have received the following email from the StR who has just finished weekend nights.
  • Clinical Case

I can see Monkeys everywhere

A 16-year-old is brought in by ambulance to your resuscitation room with a reduced level of consciousness and then starts to see monkeys everywhere. What’s going on?
  • SBA

Acute Opioid Toxicity

A young adult presents with an opioid overdose, how will you manage this patient?
  • Clinical Case

Unusual Agitation in Final Year Student

A 21-year-old student presents to ED distressed and agitated, pacing up and down. He looks terrified and is acutely suicidal.
  • Blog

Understanding Medical Cannabis: Mechanisms, Indications and Clinical Integration

Medical cannabis refers to cannabis-derived pharmacological products prescribed by qualified healthcare professionals for the treatment of specific medical conditions.
  • Clinical Case

When Vascular Meets Surgical

A flight, a scar, and a swollen leg. What lies beneath the surface isn’t just a clot.
  • Reference

Disturbed or Psychiatric Patients in the ED

This module focuses on the assessment and initial management of psychiatric patients in the ED.
  • Learning Session

Disturbed or Psychiatric Patients in the ED

This module focuses on the assessment and initial management of psychiatric patients in the emergency department.
  • Podcast

July 2025

This month we have Parental concern and critical illness in children | Acute behavioural disturbance in the ED (Part Two) | Clearing paediatric C-spine with CT imaging only | New Online.
  • Learning Session

Acute Alcohol Withdrawal

Alcohol withdrawal is a common presentation to UK EDs and patients can present significant management challenges to clinicians.
  • Clinical Case

Self-Harm in a Vulnerable Patient

A 23-year-old male with autism, ADHD and prior self-harm presents with suicidal hallucinations. Initially cooperative, he later becomes agitated and violent, requiring urgent intervention for safety despite de-escalation attempts.
  • SBA

The missing patient who absconded

How will you manage your absconding patient with suicidal intent who has gone ‘absent without leave’?
  • SBA

Body Stuffers – Management and the Law

A suspected juvenile drug trafficker refuses radiological imaging. Police seek medical advice on next steps.
  • Blog

Learning from Deaths

This blog is something a bit different. Based on real Coroner’s cases, we’ve pulled out some critical decision moments, so you can work your way through the patient journey and decide what you would do.
  • Podcast

June 2025

This month we have Pre-hospital Thoracotomy Outcomes | Acute behavioural disturbance in the ED (Part One) | Systematic review of resuscitative hysterotomy | New Online
  • SBA

Foxglove – Beautiful but a deadly plant

An adolescent male presents with abdominal pain, vomiting and bradyarrhythmia after ingesting foxglove plant leaves with an intention to harm himself.
  • Blog

Understanding Informed Consent: A Guide for Healthcare Professionals

Every patient has the right to be involved in decisions about their treatment and care. Informed consent ensures that patients have all the necessary information to make free and informed decisions about their medical care.
  • Clinical Case

The Mysterious Gut Opacity!

Young adult female patient presenting to the ED with abdominal pain, constipation and confusing findings in erect abdominal x-ray.
  • SBA

Patients at risk of absconding

How will you manage the absconding patient?
  • Induction Module

Toxicology – Induction

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.
  • SBA

Acute Behavioural Disturbance (ABD)

SBA session on the RCEM recommendations about the management of an aggressive patient with acute behavioural disturbance (ABD). How to keep your patient, your colleagues, and yourself safe!
  • Clinical Case

Acute Aggressive Behaviour in an Elderly Patient

A 63-year-old man, who speaks only Hindi, is brought to the ED due to acute confusion and aggressive behaviour.
  • Clinical Case

Deliberate Self-Harm

A patient with a prior diagnosis of EUPD is brought to the ED by a friend because he has cut his arm with a Stanley Knife.
  • Clinical Case

Texting Trouble

A healthy 25-year-old presents to the ED complaining she cannot text on her phone.
  • Clinical Case

Brain dead?

A 51-year-old who presents profoundly unconscious.
  • Clinical Case

Unravelling the Mysterious Weakness

A 51-year-old man presents with acute onset of central chest pain accompanied by nausea, vomiting and paralysis of all four limbs.
  • Clinical Case

Aggression in Patient with Learning Disability

A patient with moderate learning disability is brought in by their father because he has suddenly become aggressive.
  • 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

Ecstasy

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

Spill the Tea

A 32-year-old man presents to the ED with RUQ, tachycardia and diarrhoea after starting a new herbal supplement for weight loss.
  • Guideline

Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome – Guideline

How to recognise and manage Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome as a cause of vomiting and abdominal pain.
  • Guideline

Acute Behavioural Disturbance in Emergency Departments – Guideline

How to recognise and manage patients with Acute Behavioural Disturbance in order to support their emergency care whilst maintaining safety of the patient, staff, and others.
  • 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?
  • Learning Session

Acute Behavioural Disturbance

This module identifies the clinical features of acute behavioural disturbance (ABD) and covers the initial assessment and management of patients with ABD in the Emergency Department.
  • Reference

Acute Behavioural Disturbance

This session identifies the clinical features of acute behavioural disturbance (ABD) and covers the initial assessment and management of patients with ABD in the ED.
  • 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.
  • Clinical Case

Another angry drunk

It’s Friday night, a 19-year-old male who alleges he’s been assaulted is shouting / being aggressive in the waiting area. The triage nurse asks you to discharge him.
  • Clinical Case

Coprophagy in Humans

A 45-year-old man develops methemoglobinemia after an incidence of eating his own faeces.
  • SAQ

Head Injury

Another faller presents to your ED Confused and smelling of alcohol. What will you do? How can you avoid missing the common pitfalls?
  • Blog

Autism Spectrum Condition in the ED

This blog looks at the challenges that patients with Autism Spectrum Condition face in the emergency setting
  • Blog

Public Health in the Emergency Department Series #1

This is the first of our public health series blogs. Keep your eyes peeled for a few more public health topics over the next few weeks.
  • Clinical Case

Acidotic alcoholics – what does the gas say?

A 56-year-old man presents to the ED 48 hours following an alcohol binge with chest pain and dyspnoea.
  • Blog

Eating Disorders in the ED

With a huge burden of mental and physical health needs carried by patients with eating disorders, ED clinicians need to be aware of how they can give the care needed.
  • SAQ

Acute Behavioural Disturbance – SAQ

A patient with acute behavioural disturbance is proving very hard to manage, you need to gain control but by what means and what powers do you have to achieve this?
  • SBA

Bone Pain

A young lady presented with abdominal pain, lethargy, (Groin) bone pain, depression and headache.
  • SBA

A Collapse whilst Running

A 13-year-old female collapses whilst running. How will you assess and manage this?
  • SAQ

Inflicted (non-accidental) Injury

The unspoken disease of inflicted, non-accidental injury in children.
  • Clinical Case

Never Make Diagnostic Assumptions!

A 29-year-old woman attends your ED for medical clearance before further treatment by her Mental Health team. She has a seizure before you review her.
  • SBA

Psychosis in the ED

A young man presents with auditory hallucinations and paranoid delusions. Test your knowledge on assessment and management of a psychiatric patient.
  • SBA

Managing the ‘Tasered’ Patient – Conducted Energy Devices

A conducted energy device (CED) ‘taser’ was discharged into a patient’s shoulder. Before this patient is taken into police custody, you’ve been asked to assess them in your ED.
  • Podcast

EMJ Podcast October 2022

This month Susie and Rajesh talk about Emergency Physicians experience of stress during resuscitation and strategies for mitigating the effects of stress on performance.
  • SBA

Conducted Energy Devices

The Police have brought a patient to your ED that has had a controlled energy device discharged into their upper back. You are called to assess this patient.
  • SAQ

Complications of Alcohol Excess

A 45-year-old man attends the department with a 48 hour history of nausea and vomiting. He also has a diffuse upper abdominal pain.
  • Clinical Case

Decompensated liver failure not always just about the liver

A lady presents with decompensated liver disease and the CT reveals more than just ascites and cirrhosis.
  • Reference

Sexual Assault Aftercare in the Emergency Department

This session outlines a standardised approach to providing care for a haemodynamically normal patient presenting following rape or sexual assault.
  • SBA

Functional Seizures

Functional Seizures aren’t managed with benzodiazepines – but how do you tell functional seizures from epileptic ones?
  • SAQ

Fish Poisoning

From somewhere under the sea, sun... and food container.
  • Clinical Case

Tis the season ….

Regular attender is brought to ED with low GCS with suspicion of intoxication in cold winter season.
  • Blog

Pearls and Pitfalls of Personality Disorder

What happens if your personality is disordered or disrupted by psychiatric illness? How can your ‘self’ then be accurately discerned from your personality disorder? Where does the condition end and you begin?
  • Reference

Inclusion Health in the ED

An interactive learning session covering the relevance of Inclusion Health to ED.
  • Learning Session

Inclusion Health in the ED

An interactive learning session covering the relevance of Inclusion Health to ED.
  • Clinical Case

Can’t stand – bilateral leg weakness

A 25-year-old male presents with a five day history of bilateral muscular leg pain.
  • Blog

Functional Seizures

This blog article aims to consolidate several resources and anecdotal practice around functional seizures.
  • Learning Session

Eating Disorders

This session covers important aspects of history taking, examination and investigation, alongside national guidelines and risk assessment tools, to help guide patient management.
  • Reference

Eating disorders

The number of patients presenting to the ED with an eating disorder, or complications arising from an eating disorder, is increasing yearly.
  • SAQ

Managing Tachyarrhythmias

This SAQ explores the knowledge and practical applications of managing life-threatening tachyarrhythmias.
  • SBA

The patient who absconds

How will you manage the absconding patient?
  • Reference

Violent Behaviour in the ED

Managing challenging and violent behaviour is an integral part of the workload of an Emergency Department.
  • Learning Session

Violent Behaviour in the ED

Managing challenging and violent behaviour is an integral part of the workload of an Emergency Department.
  • Clinical Case

A not so happy ending

A 22-year-old healthy male attends ED with sudden onset of headache. He reports taking 100 mg Sildenafil before the headache started. On examination there is right arm weakness.
  • Learning Session

Fabricated or Induced Illness

Fabricated or induced illness (FII) is a form of child abuse. It is associated with significant morbidity (physical and psychological) and mortality. Recognition of FII is frequently difficult and subsequent management is complex.
  • Reference

Fabricated or Induced Illness

FII is a broad term to describe a group of behaviours by parents or carers which cause harm to children.
  • Clinical Case

Much Ado About Something

A man with a history of mental health problems, pancreatitis, alcohol excess and type 2 diabetes presents with anxiety.
  • Induction Module

Mental Health in the ED – Induction

Here are some tips on the common mental health presentations to the emergency department
  • Podcast

October 2020

This month we discuss Guidelines in EM: Mental health | Ondansetron take home in paeds gastroenteritis | Diarrhea and rehydration
  • Induction Module

Attendances in the ED Related to Alcohol – Induction

Working in the emergency department, you are guaranteed to see and treat patients from all specialties of medicine and surgery. Most will prove to be interesting but also challenging at the same time.
  • Learning Session

Psychiatric Emergencies for the Adult Patient

Patients with mental health problems often present to the Emergency Department (ED). They will commonly be assessed and then treated, initially, by junior doctors.
  • Clinical Case

Picking your brain (or blood) cells …

A young male has concerning symptoms with a background history of G6PD deficiency…
  • Blog

Coronavirus, (COVID19) tips and resources

RCEMLearning Coronavirus, COVID19, tips and resources
  • Blog

The ABC of Self-Harm in Young People – A Psychiatric Approach to Resuscitation

Why is this a hot topic? It is a sign of serious distress. It is common. It is strongly associated with suicide. Suicide is one of commonest causes death in young people. 200% increase in self harm 1985-1995. If ever you have the opportunity to save a young persons life - it is now.
  • Blog

Irritable Bowel Syndrome in the Emergency Department

"Toni is a 35 year old lady who attends the emergency department regularly with chest pain. Nothing seems to make it better, and her troponin is always normal. You wonder if there is a potential cause. Read on to find out that there is more to IBS than abdominal pain."
  • Learning Session

The Mental Health Act and Emergency Medicine

Approximately 10% of all admissions to the Emergency Department (ED) are related to patients having a mental health crisis.  With the ever increasing numbers of patients requiring mental health input, it is important that we understand the law that underpins our treatment (RCEM, 2018)
  • Reference

Acute Alcohol Withdrawal

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is defined by the World Health Organisation as consuming more than 40g/day of alcohol for males and 30mg/day of alcohol for females
  • Blog

Alcohol Related ED Attendances

Working in the emergency department, you are guaranteed to see and treat patients from all specialties of medicine and surgery. Most will prove to be interesting but also challenging at the same time.
  • Blog

Abdominal Pain

It's your second day on the 'shop floor' and your next patient is handed over as a 51 year old man who has been brought in by ambulance with sudden onset generalised abdominal pain and vomiting
  • Blog

Anecdote-based Emergency Medicine #1: excited delirium

The relative tranquillity of the night shift thus was about to be broken. I swallowed my apprehension and walked outside.
  • Blog

Emergency Casebook 4: It’s Cold Outside

This is the fifth in a series of Emergency Casebooks from the virtual hospital CFN General, with key learning points for staff working in an Emergency Department
  • Blog

Emergency Casebook 1: A bit unsteady after a night out

This is the first in a series of Emergency Casebooks from the virtual hospital CFN General, with key learning points for staff working in an Emergency Department

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