On August 17th 2013 The Lancet published what appears to be Eli Lilly’s face saving article on its derailed quest to replace its predecessor, clopidogrel (1).In its attempt to emulate Bristol Meyer with its triple C (CURE, CREDO, CLARITY) trials, pull the wool over the healthcare industry’s global eyes and become the second leading sold drug […]
EMNerd
The Nihilistic Ramblings of Rory Spiegel, MD
The Adventure of the Crooked Man
A recent study entitled, “Outcomes at 12 Months After Early Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Acute Trauma Patients With Persistent Midline Cervical Tenderness and Negative Computed Tomography” published in the June 2013 issue of Spine has attempted to shine a small amount of light on a topic that has cast a large shadow of doubt on […]
The Adventure of the Red Circle
When it comes to non-traumatic intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) the onus of the emergency physician is diagnosis, while location and severity are of far less importance. Once the diagnosis is made and the initial stabilization complete, there is very little for us to do other then notify the ICU team and contact the neurosurgeon, who, in […]
The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter
In Greek mythology Peitho was the Goddess of persuasion and seduction. Please feel free to find irony where you see fit… I am a sucker for catchy trial names. I swoon in anticipation when reading of the recent publication of a large multi-centered randomized control trial on a topic that is relevant to emergency medicine. […]
The Adventure of the Cardboard Box
There have been a number of seemingly negative studies published recently in which the authors, using ordinal analysis, have claimed their trials are in fact positive. Though not the first, the most notable of these studies was the IST3 trial published in May of last year. In this trial, the largest to date, comparing thrombolytics […]