SGEM Xtra: IAEMC 2017 #Puravida

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Date: June 14th, 2017

I had the pleasure of presenting at the Intra America Emergency Medicine Conference (#IAEMC17) held in Costa Rica last month. Thank you to Dr. Manrique Umana for inviting me and the conference organizers for putting on such an amazing and educational event. I had a fantastic time meeting so many wonderful people from South, Central and North America.

I gave two talks during the conference and promised that all the material would be available for free as part of the FOAMed movement.

Talk I: Knowledge Translation in the Digital Age

The first talk was on knowledge translation (KT) in the digital age. It has been said that it can take 17 years for 14% of research to reach the patients’ bedside (Morris et al 2011).

A number of examples of the KT problem were provided. The Pathman Leaky Pipe Model was used to illustrate seven leaks in KT. Social Media (FOAMed) was offered as a possible solution to the KT problem. Criticism of social media dating back 2,500 years were discussed (Tom Standage). A short list, not a complete list, of some quality FOAMed sites were provided.

Copies of the slides can be downloaded from this link: KT in Digital Age PDF.

Talk II: Five SGEM Episodes

The second talk was five SGEM episodes selected by Dr. Manrique Umana. Manrique and his team are responsible for SGEM Global Spanish. They have done a number of translations into Spanish to remove language as a knowledge translation barrier and help cut the KT window down to less than one year. The most recent episode reviewed by the SGEM Global Spanish team is the Ottawa Heart Failure Risk Scale.

A Star Wars theme was used for the presentation with an opening crawler written in Spanish. You can click on this link to view the video (The SGEM Returns Spanish).

Five SGEM Episodes:
- The HEART Pathway: The HEART Pathway appears to have the potential to safely decrease objective cardiac testing, increase early discharge rates and cut median length of stay in low risk chest pain patients presenting to the emergency department with suspicion of acute coronary syndrome.. SGEM#151
- Medical Expulsive Therapy for Kidney Stones: Expulsive therapy is unnecessary for ureteric stones < 5mm. There is some weak evidence that tamsulosin may help passage of larger stones (5 to 10 mm). SGEM#154
- Simple Abscesses and Antibiotics: The addition of TMP/SMX to the treatment of uncomplicated cutaneous abscesses represents an opportunity for shared decision-making. SGEM#164
- Management of Bronchiolitis: There seems to be a knowledge gap when it comes to managing bronchiolitis in the community hospital setting. SGEM#167
- Diazepam for Acute Low Back Pain: Based on the best available data, it does not appear that diazepam should be routinely added to an NSAID for outpatient management of acute, nontraumatic low back pain. SGEM#173

Copies of the slides can be downloaded from this link: Five SGEM Episodes PDF.

There were three things to remember from the two talks: use the FOAMed, the evidence based medicine answer is “it all depends” and be a skeptic.

BatDoc and Dr. Tintinalli

Dr. Tintinilli and BatDoc

There were many special moments at IAEMC17. One of the special moments was when BatDoc ran into one of the legends of Emergency Medicine, Dr. Judy Tintinalli. She has been an inspiration to so many EM physicians and there will be something special on the SGEM this summer highlighting her contributions to the specialty. Until that SGEM Xtra comes out in the next couple of months you can click on the link to watch the video (Dr. Tintinalli and BatDoc).

Thank you again to the IAEMC17 committee for inviting me to the event. It was such a pleasure to see existing friends and make some new FOAMed friends. I hope to come back again in the future with some maple whiskey, sample some more Chilean wine and drink even more great Costa Rican coffee. The whole experience was Pure Vida.