Best Case Ever | Emergency Medicine Cases

Best Case Ever 62 Penetrating Upper Airway Injury Awake Intubation Do’s & Don’ts

If you were faced with stab wound to the neck and had to act fast, would you have a well-thought out plan that you are comfortable with? In this EM Cases Best Case Ever podcast we discuss the do's and don'ts of penetrating upper airway injury awake intubation with airway expert George Kovacs....

By Anton Helman|2021-04-07T22:02:14-04:00September 26th, 2017|Categories: Best Case Ever, EM Cases, Emergency Medicine, Medical Specialty, Trauma|Tags: awake intubation, George Kovacs, penetrating neck injury, RSI|2 Comments

Best Case Ever 61 Biohazard Preparedness: The Protected Code Blue

In anticipation of EM Cases Main Episode 100 on Disaster Medicine with Laurie Mazurik, David Kollek and Joshua Bezanson, Dr. Mazurik tells of her experience as a disaster medicine leader with keeping health care workers safe during the SARS era. If you were faced with a patient with suspected Ebola or drug resistant TB or any other biohazard patient who required intubation, would you know how to handle the situation so that you and your colleagues were safe...

By Anton Helman|2017-08-28T13:58:48-04:00August 28th, 2017|Categories: Best Case Ever, EM Cases, Emergency Medicine, Medical Specialty, Special Populations|Tags: biohazard, Ebola, PAPR, SARS|0 Comments

Best Case Ever 60 What we can learn from Prehospital Trauma Management

In this EM Cases podcast Dr. Joel Lockwood tells his Best Case Ever of a prehospital trauma resuscitation, bringing to light the challenges faced by EMS with the complicated trauma patient. He discusses the importance of checklists, practice and simulation to help streamline the process, offloading some cognitive burden, prepare the team, reduce the change of errors, improve efficiency and etch actions into each team member's muscle memory.

By Anton Helman|2017-08-10T11:31:30-04:00August 1st, 2017|Categories: Best Case Ever, EM Cases, Emergency Medicine, Medical Specialty, Resuscitation, Trauma|Tags: difficult airway, Joel Lockwood, transport medicine|0 Comments

Best Case Ever 59 Management of Acute Renal Failure with Volume Overload

Sometimes our renal failure patients present short of breath with volume overload and we don't have immediate access to dialysis. What then? Dr. Mike Betzner, EM doc and medical director of STARS air ambulance service and collaborator on EM Cases CritCases blog tells his Best Case Ever and his approach to this challenging clinical situation. He offers two commonly used solutions: nitroglycerin and BiPAP as well as two not so common solutions: phlebotomy and rotating BP cuffs blown to above SBP...

By Anton Helman|2017-07-17T14:08:29-04:00June 27th, 2017|Categories: Best Case Ever, Cardiology, EM Cases, Emergency Medicine, Medical Specialty|Tags: ARF, BIPAP, Mike Betzner, nitroglycerin, pulmonary edema|4 Comments

Best Case Ever 58 Euglycemic DKA

It's not only run of the mill DKA, starvation and alcoholic ketoacidosis that can cause a metabolic acidosis with elevated ketones. Euglycemic DKA can be caused by the newer diabetes medications sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitors like Canagliflozin; and it's important to recognize this tricky diagnosis early and initiate treatment for DKA despite a normal serum glucose level...

By Anton Helman|2018-01-17T00:07:17-05:00June 6th, 2017|Categories: Best Case Ever, EM Cases, Emergency Medicine, Medical Specialty|Tags: Canagliflozin, DKA, ketoacidosis, metabolic acidosis, SGLT, Walter HImmel|0 Comments

Best Case Ever 57 PREPARE mnemonic for Airway Management

Airway management requires a lot things; it requires not only technical skills and specific considerations of anatomy and physiology but a co-ordinated team who can communicate clearly and react to a whole slew of potentially challenging situations. On this month's Best Case Ever podcast we use the framework of a new mnemonic PREPARE to discuss human factors, situational awareness and some airway tips and tricks with intensivist Peter Brindley, human factors expert Chris Hicks and EM-intensivist Sara Gray...

By Anton Helman|2025-09-25T12:19:07-04:00April 25th, 2017|Categories: Best Case Ever, EM Cases, Emergency Medicine, Medical Specialty, Resuscitation|Tags: AMOTOR, Chris Hicks, Cricothyrotomy, debrief, human factors, Peter Brindley, PREPARE, Sara Gray, situational awareness|0 Comments

Best Case Ever 56 Anion Gap Metabolic Acidosis

In this month's Best Case Ever on EM Cases Dr. Ross Claybo and Dr. Keerat Grewal tell the story of a patient with a complicated anion gap metabolic acidosis. We discuss how to sort through the differential diagnosis with a better mnemonic than MUDPILES, the controversy around administering sodium bicarbonate for metabolic acidosis, the indications for fomepizole and the value of taking time to to build a therapeutic relationship with your ED patients...

By Anton Helman|2020-05-15T09:16:59-04:00March 28th, 2017|Categories: Best Case Ever, EM Cases, Emergency Medicine, Medical Specialty, Toxicology|Tags: fomepizole, GOLDMARK, hyperkalemia, Keerat Grewal, ketoacidosis, MUDPILES, osmolar gap, renal failure, Ross Claybo, sodium bicarbonate, toxic alcohols|3 Comments

Best Case Ever 55 Pediatric Cerebral Herniation

In anticipation of the upcoming EM Cases main episode on Pediatric Polytrauma Dr. Suzanne Beno, Co-director of the Trauma Program at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, tells her Best Case Ever of a child who suffers a severe traumatic head injury with signs of raised intracranial pressure and cerebral herniation. She discusses the importance of being vigilant when presented with classic patterns of injury, the use of hypertonic saline, crisis resource management and shared decision making with consultants...

By Anton Helman|2020-05-15T09:16:04-04:00March 7th, 2017|Categories: Best Case Ever, EM Cases, Emergency Medicine, Medical Specialty, Neurology, Pediatrics, Trauma|Tags: cerebral herniation, epidural hematoma, hypertonic saline, major head injury, raised ICP, Suzanne Beno|0 Comments

Best Case Ever 53 – TTP

As EM Cases has grown and expanded over the past 7 years I've had the pleasure of working with a team of talented people. This Best Case Ever was produced by two all-star EM residents from Ottawa, podcaster Dr. Rajiv Vairavanathan and editor Dr. Richard Hoang. In this all-resident Best Case Ever we interview Dr. Chris Belcher from University of Kentucky about TTP - Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura, that rare but often elusive clotting disorder that picks off multiple organs and has a near 100% mortality rate without treatment...

By Anton Helman|2020-05-15T09:16:45-04:00December 20th, 2016|Categories: Best Case Ever, EM Cases, Hematology, Medical Specialty, Resuscitation|Tags: altered mental status, anemia, Christopher Belcher, Rajiv Vairavanathan, schistocytes, thrombocytopenia|1 Comment

Best Case Ever 52 – Pediatric Hypothermia Cardiac Arrest

In anticipation of EM Cases Episode 90 on the Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) guidelines with the lead author Dr. Allan DeCaen and Dr. Anthony Crocco, Dr. DeCaen tells his Best Case Ever showing us the value of orchestrated team work and a great example of the saying, "they're not dead until they're warm and dead"...

By Anton Helman|2016-12-06T16:45:45-05:00December 6th, 2016|Categories: Best Case Ever, Cardiology, EM Cases, Emergency Medicine, Medical Specialty, Pediatrics, Resuscitation|Tags: Allan DeCaen, CPR, ECMO, hypothermia, pediatric arrest|0 Comments