EMCrit Project

The CT-LP (lumbar puncture) diagnostic pathway has been a permanent fixture in the arsenal of the Emergency Physician for what seems like an eternity. Steadfast in its dependability, for many generations, the LP was a necessity for Emergency Physicians to safely exclude the diagnosis of subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). And yet, rarely a moment has passed over […]

For those whose beliefs are already firmly in favor of endovascular therapy for acute ischemic stroke, the publication of the MR CLEAN trial earlier this year and more recently the EXTEND-IA and ESCAPE trials only serve as a big fat, “I TOLD YOU SO!” For the perpetual disbelievers, each of these trials possesses enough flaws […]

  So often in the management of the critically ill we are forced to choose between the lesser of two evils. The transfusion of blood products in the face of hemorrhagic shock is in some ways the best compromise of less than ideal choices. Every drop of resuscitative fluid given that does not mimic the […]

Saline-based resuscitation strategies were first proposed as far back as 1831 during the Cholera Epidemic. In an article published in the Lancet in 1831, Dr. O’Shaughnessy suggests the use of injected salts into the venous system as a means of combating the dramatic dehydration seen in patients afflicted with this bacterial infection(1). Saline’s potential harms […]

Published in the NEJM on December 17th 2014, ushered in with the inflated fanfare only the medical industry capable of, MR CLEAN marks the first successful trial of interventional therapy for acute ischemic stroke. In direct contrast to IMS-3, SYNTHESIS and MR RESCUE, MR CLEAN is a significantly positive trial.  The authors demonstrated success in […]