Department Blog

Amal Mattu, MD, was the keynote speaker for the U.S. Army Emergency Medicine Leadership Conference held in Tacoma, Washington, on August 31. The title of his address was "Everyday Leadership: Secrets of Great Minds Through the Ages." He also presented a lecture on "Acute Coronary Syndromes in the Elderly Patient."

Semhar Tewelde, MD, and Joshua Reynolds, MD, MS, guest edited the August issue of Emergency Medicine Clinics of North America. The topic is cardiovascular emergencies. Most of the articles in this issue were written by current and former EM faculty members and residents:

• “Cardiovascular Catastrophes in the Obstetric Population” by Sarah Dubbs, MD, and Dr. Tewelde
• “The Critically Ill Infant with Congenital Heart Disease” by Ashley Strobel, MD, and Mimi Lu, MD, MS
• “Blunt Cardiac Injury,” co-authored by Evie Marcolini, MD
• “Chameleons: Electrocardiogram Imitators of ST-Segment Elevation MI” by J.V. Nable, MD, NRP, and Ben Lawner, DO, MS, EMT-P
• “Hypertensive Emergencies in the Emergency Department” by Yemi Adebayo, MD, and Rob Rogers, MD
• “Congestive Heart Failure” by Michael Scott, MD, and Mike Winters, MD
• “Atrial Fibrillation,” co-authored by Laura Bontempo, MD
• “Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection-Related Heart Disease” by Thuy Van Pham, MD, and Mercedes Torres, MD
• “Management of Crashing Patients with Pulmonary Hypertension” by John Greenwood, MD, and Ryan Spangler, MD
• “Cardiogenic Shock,” “Cardiac Arrest Resuscitation,” and “Postcardiac Arrest Management,”co-authored by Josh Moskovitz, MD, MPH, MBA
• “Emergency Care of Patients with Pacemakers and Defibrillators” by Michael Allison, MD, and Haney Mallemat, MD

Our department was a hosting institution for the 8th Mediterranean Emergency Medicine Congress, held in Rome in early September. Eight of our faculty members traveled to Italy to participate in this international event. Terry Mulligan, DO, MPH, served on the Executive Committee of the conference. Amal Mattu, MD, was a keynote speaker, presenting his lecture titled “Becoming the Leader Others Follow.” Also traveling to Italy as invited speakers were Brian Browne, MD, Ken Butler, DO, Semhar Tewelde, MD, Larry Weiss, MD, JD, George Willis, and Mike Winters, MD. Collectively, they led two pre-courses, presented more than 30 lectures, and moderated several panels. The conference drew more than 950 participants from 61 countries, with 105 speakers from around the world.

Mike McCurdy, MD, and Emilie Calvello, MD, along with their colleague Alfred Papali, MD, from the Division of Pulmonary/Critical Care Medicine, published the article titled “A ‘Three Delays’ Model for Severe Sepsis in Resource-Limited Countries” in the August issue of the Journal of Critical Care. Drawing from the three-delays model used by global health organizations to create policies and programs for the reduction of perinatal mortality, the authors propose a similar framework designed to confront the alarming mortality rates associated with severe sepsis and septic shock in developing countries.

Douglas Floccare, MD, MPH, and Jon Mark Hirshon, MD, PhD, MPH, are co-authors of the article titled “Ground and Helicopter Emergency Medical Services Time Tradeoffs Assessed with Geographic Information,” published in the July issue of Aerospace Medicine and Human Performance. Their study demonstrated the efficacy of geographic information systems in comparing helicopter and ground transport times and thereby identifying which mode of transportation would be advantageous to patients both in advance (as regional maps) and in real-time decision making.

Quincy Tran, MD, PhD, has received a scholarship from the Emergency Medicine Foundation to attend the Emergency Medicine Basic Research Skills Workshop. The 11-day course will be held in Dallas in November and April. Congratulations to Dr. Tran for succeeding in the highly competitve application process for this award!

The trauma care training program for physicians in Egypt, which was designed 10 years ago by Jon Mark Hirshon, MD, MPH, PhD, and colleagues in Shock Trauma and at Ain Shams University in Cairo, is the focus of an article in the July-August issue of the Journal of Surgical Education. To date, 639 physicians from multiple specialties have taken the 4-day course, which has been adopted by the Egyptian Emergency Medicine Board and is required training at several Egyptian medical schools.

Bryan Hayes, PharmD, is the lead author of the article titled “Social Media in the Emergency Medicine Residency Curriculum: Social Media Responses to the Residents’ Perspective Article,” published in the May issue of Annals of Emergency Medicine. This report categorizes contributions to a 14-day online discussion of an article on the integration of social media into the emergency medicine residency curriculum, which drew 1,033 “unique visitors” from 32 countries. The authors concluded that online interactions hold great potential for dissemination of knowledge and the generation of hypotheses for future research. The article was highlighted as an Editor’s Choice for Clinicians.

Rose M. Chasm, MD, and Veronica Pei, MD, MPH, MEd, are the lead authors of the article titled “Sex Differences in Risk of Hospitalization Among Emergency Department Patients with Acute Asthma,” published in the July issue of Annals of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology. This report is based on a study by the Multicenter Airway Research Collaboration, involving 2000 patients treated in 48 academic and community hospital emergency departments. Its findings are strikingly similar those published by the MARC in 1999: women remain at higher risk of hospitalization than men following an exacerbation, even though they are more likely to be under the care of an asthma specialist and to be following guideline-recommended pathways for the long-term management of asthma.

The May 2015 issue of Emergency Medicine Clinics of North America contains two review articles on infectious diseases, written by members of the EM faculty. The first, on the topic of Ebola, was compiled by the team of Drs. Mercedes Torres, Dave Jerrard, and Karen Hansen, at the height of national attention on the emergency medical system’s readiness to receive and treat patients suspected of carrying the virus. The second, by Dr. Ferras Khan, covers the enterovirus outbreak. These special-request publications were written on short notice earlier this year, in response to the outbreaks that were occurring at the time, with the goal of providing timely and applicable diagnostic and managemnet informtion to emergency medicine practitioners.