Date: August 7th, 2022

Dr. Dennis Ren

Host Skeptic: Dr. Dennis Ren is a pediatric emergency medicine attending at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC. You might remember him from the SGEM episodes on febrile infants, aseptic meningitis, and community acquired pneumonia.

This is an SGEM Xtra episode. Season 10 is coming to an end. We want to thank all our listeners and skeptics who have tuned in for ten years. We have ~67,000 subscribers and the SGEM has been translated into four other languages.

We have tried different initiatives over the years to improve the quality of the SGEM. Sometimes this has worked (Keener contest, Meme Monday, Twitter Poll Tuesday and Paper in a Pic Thursday) and sometimes it has not worked (Hot or Not and Continuing Medical Education Credits).

For Season 11, we knew we had to do something special and turn it up to eleven.  To accomplish this we have invited Dennis to join the SGEM faculty and provide his pediatric expertise on a regular basis. Each month he will be leading an SGEM episode.

Don’t Panic! Dennis will use the same critical appraisal tools to probe the literature for its validity. The theme music may be more contemporary, but the content will still be fantastic FOAMed.

We recognize that Dennis’ clinical experience working in a tertiary centre may be different than the clinicians who provide care to the vast majority of pediatric patients that are seen in community EDs. The evidence-based medicine principles will still apply. The evidence discussed on the SGEM should inform your care but it should not dictate your care. You will still need to use your good clinical judgment and ask your patients about their values and preferences. The ultimate goal of the SGEM remains the same, to provide patients with the best care, based upon the best evidence.

And we want to hear from you. Are you a passionate researcher who just published an amazing article? Or do you have an article or topic you want us to cover? Please send Dennis an email SGEMpeds@gmail.com to suggest an article or topic to cover.

The SGEM will be back next episode doing a structured critical appraisal of a recent publication. Trying to cut the knowledge translation window down from over ten years to less than one year using the power of social media. So patients get the best care, based on the best evidence.


REMEMBER TO BE SKEPTICAL OF ANYTHING YOU LEARN, EVEN IF YOU HEARD IT ON THE SKEPTICS’ GUIDE TO EMERGENCY MEDICINE