Intravenous acetaminophen and intravenous ketorolac for management of pediatric surgical pain: a literature review.

Pediatric surgical patients are a population at risk of inadequate pain management. The American Society of Anesthesiologists' 2012 Practice Guidelines for Acute Pain Management in the Perioperative Setting recommend a multimodal approach as the most effective way to prevent and treat pain in children. A multimodal approach entails the use of 2 or more analgesic medications that act by different mechanisms, to maximally target a variety of pain receptors and reduce the potential for side effects. One method for incorporating a multimodal approach is to augment intravenous (IV) opioids with nonopioid IV analgesics. Ketorolac and acetaminophen are the 2 nonopioid IV analgesics currently available for use in the United States. This article provides a review of the literature of IV ketorolac and IV acetaminophen regarding their pharmacology, analgesic efficacy, limitations, and practical considerations, with a focus on patients 16 years of age and younger.

Update on Guidelines for Perioperative Antibiotic Selection and Administration From the Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) and American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.

Antibiotic prophylaxis plays an important role in the prevention of surgical site infections. For healthcare institutions to receive reimbursement, compliance with current measures introduced by the Surgical Care Improvement Project is required. Anesthesia providers commonly administer prophylactic antibiotics and are in the position to provide valuable input in the perioperative setting. This review provides a summary of the most common antibiotics used in the surgical setting-cefazolin, clindamycin, and vancomycin-and their implications to the anesthesia provider, such as proper dosing, targeting bacteria, and side effects.

Can script concordance testing be used in nursing education to accurately assess clinical reasoning skills?

The Script Concordance Test (SCT) has been used successfully in medical schools to assess clinical reasoning in medical students, but it has not been widely used in nursing education. The purpose of this study was to provide additional evidence of the validity and reliability of the SCT in evaluating clinical reasoning in nursing students by replicating a previous study. The test was administered to 48 first-year Bachelor of Science in Nursing students. A scoring grid was developed using the aggregate scores method based on the modal responses of 13 panel members. The reliability of the scores was measured by Cronbach's alpha coefficient, and the scores of the students and the panel were compared using a t test. The difference between the panel's and the students' scores was statistically significant, and the reliability of the scores is high. The SCT provides a reliable, standardized, and easy-to-administer method of evaluating clinical reasoning in nursing students.