Over the past decade Point/of/Care Ultrasound (POC US) is increasingly performed in adult emergency medicine for a variety of indications. Pediatric emergency medicine has been much slower to embrace POC US. The authors report a case of a 15/year/old boy that presented to the pediatric emergency department with abdominal pain. A diagnosis of appendicitis was made using real/time POC US by a ped...

We present an unusual neurologic emergency in an elderly male patient. Given his presentation and risk factors, we presumed the initial symptoms to be secondary to a cerebrovascular accident. As the case evolved, however, it became apparent that a more unusual pathology was present. This case report showcases a rare condition masquerading as a common neurologic emergency.

The emergency department (ED) represents an important transition of care for patients, where understanding the patient health condition is critical to forming an appropriate plan of care. Because many emergency referral visits are unplanned and urgent, this information may not be conveyed in advance to ED physicians. Loss of this data can lead to costly over-testing in the ED referral, or worse...

Gravid uterine incarceration (GUI) is a condition that is well discussed in literature; however, there are few acute diagnoses in the emergency department (ED). We present a case series where three multiparous females presented to the ED with non-specific urinary symptoms. On bedside ultrasound, each patient was noted to have a retroverted uterus and inferior bladder entrapment under the sacral...

Sodium hypochlorite is widely used as an irrigating solution in dental practice. Despite its safe properties, serious complications can result from inadvertent use. We report a patient presenting to the accident and emergency department for sodium hypochlorite accident during dental root canal therapy. The management of this dental emergency condition is discussed. (Hong Kong j.emerg.med. 2010;...

Pneumonia is a condition that is often treated by emergency physicians. This article reviews the diagnosis and management of pneumonia in the emergency department and highlights dilemmas in diagnostic testing, use of blood and sputum cultures, hospital admission decisions, infection control, quality measures for pneumonia care, and empiric antimicrobial therapy.

We herein report the case of a 46-year-old pregnant woman with anti-muscle specific kinase (MuSK) antibody-positive myasthenia gravis (MG) who showed pregnancy-induced hypertension and developed respiratory failure at 30 weeks and 5 days of pregnancy, and who underwent an emergency caesarean section (CS). Her MG symptoms gradually improved in the subsequent weeks. The premature baby with positi...

OBJECTIVE To delineate the clinical features of traumatic adrenal haematoma, to help emergency physicians recognise the condition early and so to prevent adrenal crisis. METHODS Review of the records of all patients admitted to Chi-Mei Medical Center, Tainan, Taiwan, with traumatic torso injuries, between 1 August 2003 and 31 August 2005. Of the 305 patients reviewed, 8 had adrenal haematoma....

Seizures and status epilepticus are frequent neurologic emergencies in the emergency department, accounting for 1% of all emergency department visits. The management of this time-sensitive and potentially life-threatening condition is challenging for both prehospital providers and emergency clinicians. The approach to seizing patients begins with differentiating seizure activity from mimics and...

OBJECTIVES First, to test a model of the drivers of frequent emergency department utilization conceptualized as falling within predisposing, enabling, and need dimensions. Second, to extend the model to include social networks and service quality as predictors of frequent utilization. Third, to illustrate the variation in thresholds that define frequent utilization in terms of the number of eme...