Blog Topic: Emergency Medicine

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  Mythbusting “Dry Drowning”

  August 23, 2018

  Experts, including Joan Thode, MD, of Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health Physicians Roseville Pediatrics, maintain that “dry drowning” is a misunderstood term and not an actual medical condition.

  Emergency Medicine
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  A Story that Sticks to Your Ribs

  July 09, 2018

  “It was a monumental sneeze, for sure,” said Lou, who remembers feeling what he describes as, “a twinge in my chest, but no great pain.” Twelve hours later, that twinge grew into “pain that was through the roof,” and Lou and his wife Cathy headed to the Emergency Room at their local hospital where an x-ray revealed that that “twinge” was due to blood pooling in his chest because of a severed artery.

  Emergency Medicine General Interest
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  STB is the New CPR

  April 06, 2018

  Nearly 60,000 people die from bleeding each year, and though injuries that result in extreme blood loss have long been a sight all too common in areas like West Philadelphia, the national spotlight has certainly shone upon the issue of late.

  Emergency Medicine Family Medicine and Community Health Public Health Trauma
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  Expect the Unexpected During In-Flight Medical Emergencies

  March 26, 2018

  “Ladies and gentlemen, is there a physician on board?” The flight attendant on a flight from Rwanda to Turkey made the announcement no one wants to hear, and Rachel Zang, MD, an emergency medicine resident at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, jumped into action.

  Emergency Medicine
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  Getting to Zero Alcohol-Impaired Driving Fatalities: An Insider’s View

  January 17, 2018

  As we took our positions around the bed in the trauma bay, I could hear the first patient being wheeled in by the paramedics, screaming hysterically with slurred speech, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please save her!” The paramedics slid her backboard on to the gurney. She was flailing with tears welling up in her eyes and a heavy smell of alcohol on her breath.

  Emergency Medicine Epidemiology Public Health Addiction
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  How the Opioid Epidemic is Changing Emergency Care

  December 13, 2017

  Drug overdoses, mostly from opioids, are killing an average of 142 Americans each day. In Chester County, deaths related to opioid overdoses are up 38 percent for the first half of this year compared with 2016. The crisis is affecting both urban and community hospitals alike. Chester County Hospital is taking steps to meet the challenges this crisis presents.

  Emergency Medicine Addiction Public Health
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  Surviving the “Silent Killer”: How Seamless Coordination Saves Lives

  November 13, 2017

  As temperatures drop, the number of visits to emergency rooms across the country tends to spike in the opposite direction. From tumbles off of ladders while decorating and holiday baking burns, to icy falls and omnipresent flu germs, the “most wonderful time of the year” doesn’t always live up to its moniker. Yet, there’s one seasonal threat that we tend to forget about until a tragic story hits the news: carbon monoxide (CO), often dubbed the “invisible killer” or “silent killer.”

  Emergency Medicine Patient Care Public Health General Interest
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  [Liquid] Food for Thought

  June 19, 2017

  After a bike accident left me with a broken jaw wired shut, one of my biggest concerns was figuring out how and what to eat when I could only sip it through a straw. After discovering meal replacement shakes weren't going to cut it, I decided to talk with a pro to see what I was lacking and how I could get it.

  Trauma Nutrition Emergency Medicine
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  From the Rain, There Comes a Rainbow

  May 10, 2017

  It rained hard on Thursday, March 10, 2011. So hard that track practice at Saucon Valley High School was cancelled, leaving sophomore Amanda Illingworth a bit stranded and looking for a ride home. Little did she know the ride she accepted would change the course of the rest of her life.

  Nursing Trauma Emergency Medicine
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  Then and Now: The Healing Power of an Urban Garden

  May 01, 2017

  Originally proposed in 1774 and intended as an on-site location to grow healing medicinal plants to be eaten or brewed into tea, the Physic Garden was finally built in 1976 — and now offers therapeutic benefits in a less direct fashion, as green spaces continue to emerge as a potential tool to improve population-level health in urban settings.

  Emergency Medicine Epidemiology Pennsylvania Hospital