Department Blog

Amal Mattu, MD, presented the keynote address, “Managing Cardiac Arrest: 2015 and Beyond,” at the Scientific Conference sponsored by the Emirates Society of Emergency Medicine, held in Abu Dhabi in early December. During the conference, he presented lectures titled “Myocardial Infarction in the Presence of Left Bundle Branch Block” and “CT Angiography for the Diagnosis of Acute Coronary Syndromes.” In addition, he led an 8-hour preconference Advanced ECG Workshop that covered cardiac ischemia, ischemia mimics/confounders, and dysrhythmias.

Ben Lawner, DO, MS, EMT-P, presented a lecture titled "Where We Are with RSI: Through the Glottic Opening" at the 36th Annual Virginia EMS Symposium, held in Norfolk in mid-November. This conference brings together more than 1500 EMS providers from across the state to earn continuing education credits and review recent advances in prehospital care.

Michael Abraham, MD, MS, is the lead author of the article titled “Special Considerations in Trauma Patients,” published in the November issue of Emergency Medicine Clinics of North America. The topic for this Clinics issue is behavioral and psychiatric emergencies. Mike’s co-authors are Patrick Aquino, MD, a psychiatrist at Lahey Medical Center in Burlington, Massachusetts, and Dick Kuo, MD, formerly on our emergency medicine faculty and now a member of the medicine/emergency medicine faculty at Baylor College of Medicine. Amal Mattu, MD, continues in the role of consulting editor for the Clinics series.

Drs. Tareq Al-Salamah, Haney Mallemat, Michael Witting, Mike Winters, and Bryan Hayes, in collaboration with Drs. Michelle Hines and Emily L. Heil from the School of Pharmacy and Dr. J. Kristie Johnson from the Department of Pathology, published an article in the December issue of the Journal of Emergency Medicine, titled “Resistance Patterns of Escherichia coli in Women with Uncomplicated Urinary Tract Infection Do Not Correlate with Institutional Antibiogram.” Based on culture results from otherwise healthy women with uncomplicated urinary tract infections treated in UMMC’s emergency department, the authors suspect that hospital antibiograms overestimate E. coli resistance rates for several antibiotics. The abstract is available at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26281821.

Joseph Martinez, MD, Sarah Sommerkamp, MD, RDMS, and Brian Euerle, MD, RDMS, are the authors of the article titled “How We Started an Elective in Emergency Bedside Ultrasound,” published in the December issue of Medical Teacher (37:1063-1066, 2015).

Dr. Laura Bontempo, along with Dr. Neda Frayha and Dr. Philip Dittmar from the Department of Medicine, have designed a “boot camp” that they offer to seniors before graduation from the University of Maryland School of Medicine. The training program was the focus of a breakout session, led by Dr. Frayha, at the 2015 National Resident Matching Program conference (“Transition to Residency: Conversations Across the Medical Education Continuum”), held in New Orleans in early October. The session was titled “Implementation of a Specialty-Neutral Internship Preparation Camp: Lessons and Successes.”

Doug Floccare, MD, MPH, who is the State Aeromedical Director for the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems and the Medical Director for the Maryland State Police Aviation Command, in addtion to being a member of the emergency medicine faculty, was a keynote speaker at the 2015 Shanghai International Forum of Urban Safety & Disaster Medical Rescue, sponsored by the Chinese Society of Disaster Medicine and held in Shanghai from October 23 to 25. The topic of his talk was "Integration of Public Service Helicopter EMS into the Healthcare System: An Overview of the Maryland Statewide Medevac Program."

The October 8th edition of EMResident, published by the Emergency Medicine Residents Association, contains an article by Chris Lemon, MD, Chief Resident, and Ashley Strobel, MD, a 2015 graduate of our Emergency Medicine/Pediatrics Residency. You can read their article, titled “The Options for Training in Pediatric Emergency Medicine,” at www.emresident.org/the-options-for-training-in-pediatric-emergency-medicine/?_cldee=bWlrZWhvbGRzd29ydGg5OTk5QGdtYWlsLmNvbQ%3d%3d.

A conversation between Terry Mulligan, DO, MPH, and Greg Henry, MD, a past president of the American College of Emergency Physicians, on the topic of the role of faith in medicine, was published in the August 17th issue of Emergency Physicians Monthly. The transcript, published as “The Soul of the Matter: Can Believing in God Make You a Better Doctor?,” is available at the journal’s website, epmonthly.com, under Dr. Henry’s column, “Oh Henry.” Because the conversation drifted toward quantum theory, Jason Bryslawskyj, a physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory, was invited to offer clarifying commentary.

Zachary Dezman, MD, MS, is the lead author of the article titled “Failure to Clear Elevated Lactate Predicts 24-Hour Mortality in Trauma Patients,” published in this month's issue of the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery. His study collaborators and co-authors are Jon Mark Hirshon, MD, MPH, PhD; Angela Comer, MPH, and Gordon Smith, MBChB, MPH, (from the National Study Center for Trauma and Emergency Medical Systems); and Mayur Narayan, MD, MPH, MBA, and Thomas Scalea, MD (from the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center).