BET 1: should Colles' fractures be splinted in a long or short arm cast?

A short-cut review of the available medical literature was carried out to establish whether elbow immobilisation is required after closed reduction of a distal radial fracture. After abstract review, six papers were found to answer this clinical question using the detailed search strategy. The author, date and country of publication, patient group studied, study type, relevant outcomes, results and study weaknesses of these papers are tabulated. It is concluded that elbow immobilisation is not required.

Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome in the Emergency Department: A 10-Year Review of Clinical Presentation and Management.

OBJECTIVES: The aims of the study were (1) to determine how frequently patients with cyclic vomiting syndrome (CVS) present to the pediatric emergency department (ED) with CVS-related symptoms, (2) to identify variables in clinical presentation that occur frequently in patients with multiple ED visits, and (3) to compare ED management of CVS with recommended guidelines. METHODS: This study is a retrospective chart review of all ED visits for CVS between April 1, 2008, and April 1, 2018, at a single center. Patients were identified from a master list of patients diagnosed with CVS in a pediatric gastroenterology clinic at the same center between June 1, 2004, and June 19, 2018. RESULTS: Of the 181 CVS clinic patients identified, 65 had visited to the ED (35.9%). Two hundred twenty-eight visits met inclusion criteria. A total of 42.5% of these visits were made by a small number of high-intensity patients (n = 6) who had an average of 16.1 visits each. These patients represented less than 10% of the total patient group. Patients with frequent visits had longer visits (536.52 vs 380.55 minutes), more frequent hospital admissions (57.73% vs 29.01%), and more visits to the ED before a formal diagnosis of CVS was made (5.83 vs 1.22), but few other distinguishing characteristics. Only 27% of eligible visits were managed with an available order set, and management varied from recommended guidelines. CONCLUSIONS: An ambiguous presentation makes the identification and consistent management of CVS in the ED difficult. Physicians should consider CVS for patients who present multiple times with unremitting vomiting to ensure appropriate referral for diagnosis and prophylactic treatment. Future studies are warranted to evaluate anticipatory processing and treatment of the "high-intensity patients" who account for much of the clinical morbidity and resource utilization.

Developing ClerkCast: An Emergency Medicine Clerkship Needs Assessment Project.

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: For Canadian medical students completing their emergency medicine (EM) clerkship rotation, developing an approach to undifferentiated patients can be difficult. Open educational resources (OERs) are a convenient solution, but faculty authored materials may not meet students' needs. There is a lack of EM OERs that deconstruct these undifferentiated EM presentations for medical students. The objective of this study was to identify EM topics poorly understood by medical students to inform a novel Free Open Access Medical Education podcast curriculum for approaching undifferentiated EM patients for medical students. METHODS: An online survey-based needs assessment was distributed to key stakeholders through direct email, social media, and the blog CanadiEM. The survey included 32 EM topics graded on a five-point Likert scale according to how much participants believe medical students require further teaching. RESULTS: Over six weeks, a total of 74 participants completed the needs assessment survey, and 58 participants met the criteria for inclusion into our study: medical students (n=23) and EM educators (inclusive of resident physicians (n=19), and staff EM physicians (n=16)). A number of presentations (n=23) were prioritized by both students and EM educators to be of the greatest need for medical students. No presentations identified as high priority by students were not also identified as high priority by EM educators. CONCLUSIONS:  The greatest mean topic scores in both EM educators and medical student responses included critical care and acute medicine topics. Of the 32 topics in the survey, 23 topics were determined to be high priority for the development of future online educational resources. Analysis of free-text responses revealed nine topics not previously listed in our survey. Our findings will be used to inform the development of our new open access podcast and can be useful for developing medical student curricula in EM.