Journal Club: DL vs VL in Trauma

Dan Ostermayer Leave a comment

This month, we will be reviewing the Effect of video laryngoscopy on trauma patient survival: a randomized controlled trial, published in Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery by Yeatts et al.  The study was a randomized controlled performed at the Maryland Shock where patients either received direct laryngoscope or glidescope assisted video laryngoscopy.

The study had a patient centered primary outcome of survival to hospital discharge and no difference was found between the two groups.  There was, however, interesting subgroup findings useful for generating the next hypothesis.

 … Read more

Two is One, One is None

Dan Ostermayer Leave a comment

With such fantastic medical educational content being produced on the web everyday, the EM community may have been lulled into a sense of  internet permanence.  For example, I’m sure many of us have said or heard others say:

“Just back it up online”. “Just search for it on Twitter”.  “Google owns Blogger, it isn’t going anywhere”.  “The wordpress blog won’t crash”.  “I can always redownload the podcasts I heard last year.  “I’ll just repost everything if it gets deleted”. “I’ll google the show notes later as a reference”.  “I have everything on Dropbox and Evernote”.

At the end of the day, just as everything offline is transient, everything online is especially… Read more

Editor Spotlight: Jordan Swartz

Dan Ostermayer Leave a comment

We are going to start a new series on the blog, to introduce the world to our most active wiki editors.   We have a very dedicated group of senior and resident editors who are actively creating new content, ensuring integrity, and fact checking WikEM.

Let me introduce Jordan Swartz MD, one of the longest and most prolific contributors to WikEM.  Jordan graduated from NYU School of Medicine and started contributing to WikEM as an intern at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.  After finishing residency, he completed a Master’s in Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University where he focused on the intersection of medicine, design, and informatics.

When not improving healthcare information systems, working in the ED, and editing WikEM, he takes fantastic photos and plays guitar.

 … Read more

Journal Club March

Dan Ostermayer Leave a comment

We are a little late this month but as a followup to the CRASH-2 trial journal club last month we are going to be reading  MATTERs .

MATTERs (Military Application of Tranexamic acid in Trauma Emergency Resuscitation Study) was a retrospective study in military trauma patients from 2009-2010 requiring transfusion.

The study addressed a significant criticisms of the CRASH-2 Trial where only  5% of patients had bleeding as a cause of death.

Two great reads in addition to the article before starting to edit.

 … Read more

Intro to Editing 4: Adding Pictures

Dan Ostermayer Leave a comment

Uploading images to the wiki is easy. You have two options:

1. On the main page the Upload Wizard will walk you through the whole process and even allow for credits and copyright acknowledgements.

uploadfile

 

2. While editing an article or creating a new one you can choose the upload button to upload an image.

drop file

For example:

[[File:Hangman fracture.png|thumb|Hangman's Fracture]] will display the hangman fracture image as a thumbnail with the caption "Hangman's Fracture"
… Read more

Intro to Editing 3: Bulleted lists

Dan Ostermayer Leave a comment

The core points of a wikem article should be represented in lists to allow for easy bedside referencing.  Numbered lists are great for differential diagnosis and treatment steps, but most content lends itself to bulleted lists.

* Start each line
* with an (*).
** More asterisks give deeper
*** and deeper levels.

**** Jumping levels creates empty space.
Starting a new line without an asterix ends the list.
  • Start each line
  • with an  (*).
    • More asterisks give deeper
      • and deeper levels.
        • But jumping levels creates empty space.

Starting a new line without an asterix ends the list

.… Read more

Intro to Editing Part 2: References

Dan Ostermayer Leave a comment

Adding a reference is easy on WikEM.  The community prefers if references follow the AMA format.  Simply add your reference between two reference tags.  Such as  <ref> insert reference here </ref>

 

At the bottom of the page in the Sources section you will see a red warning message if the footnote tag is missing from a page. Type <references/> and when you  publish your page WikEM will auto format the footnotes… Read more