The Skeptics' Guide to EM

DECEMBER 21, 2024

Date: December 15, 2024 Guest Skeptics: Dr. Chris Carpenter, Vice Chair of Emergency Medicine at Mayo Clinic. Today, were sleighing through the holiday season with a special episode filled with statistical cheer, a dash of skepticism, and a hint of eggnog-flavoured nerdiness. This is an SGEM Xtra like the one we did on What I Learned from Top Gun. Its fun to mix it up and not do a structured critical appraisal of a recent publication and have a more philosophical chat.

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SSCOR

DECEMBER 21, 2024

While the mortality rate of aspiration pneumonia depends on complications of the disease, the 30-day mortality rate hovers around 21%, with a higher rate of 29.7% in hospital-associated aspiration pneumonia. For uncomplicated pneumonia, the mortality rate is still high around 5%.

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Peter Canning

DECEMBER 21, 2024

Last night, I watched Asphalt City , a movie about paramedics in New York City starring Sean Penn as a burnt out medic with a failed family life and Tye Sheriden as the young rookie medic studying at night for his medical school entrance exams. The movie is based on the novel Black Flies by Shannon Burke, which like the movie Apocalypse Now , is a loose retelling of Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness , the story of an outpost trader whose methods in the wilds of Africa, become unsound.

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EMDocs

DECEMBER 21, 2024

We always work hard, but we may not have time to read through a bunch of journals. Its time to learn smarter. Originally published at JournalFeed , a site that provides daily or weekly literature updates. Follow Dr. Clay Smith at @spoonfedEM , and sign up for email updates here. #1: Early Shock Better VF Outcomes in OHCA Spoon Feed For every minute of delay to shock in ventricular fibrillation (VF) arrest, the proportion of successful first shocks decreases by 6%.

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