Contributor: Don Stader, MD Educational Pearls: Those on chronic opioid therapy may have high tolerance to opioids and/or opioid hyperalgesia Ketamine is a good adjunct for pain control in patients on chronic opioid therapy To avoid the time constraints often required to push ketamine intravenously, it can be given orally: Ketamine IV 25-50 mg (~0.01-0.03…
Read MoreContributor: Aaron Lessen, MD Educational Pearls: Retrospective cohort study in the Kaiser system looked at over 4 million patients receiving antibiotics to determine the effect of penicillin allergy prompts in the EHR on antibiotic prescribing Half of the sites removed prompts stating penicillin allergy and half kept the prompts Patients with penicillin allergies who received…
Read MoreContributor: Nick Tsipis, MD Educational Pearls: Prospective trial studied 5 mg IM droperidol to 10 mg IM olanzapine (Zyprexa) in the reducing levels of agitation Time to adequate sedation was about 16 minutes for both agents Droperidol was slightly less sedating than olanzapine and length of stay for olanzapine was longer Olanzapine had a higher…
Read MoreContributor: Ricky Dhaliwal, MD Educational Pearls: CRASH 3 Trial looked at over 12,000 patients with traumatic intracranial bleeds, randomizing patients to a therapy with TXA or standard of care without TXA Dosing was 1 gram over 10 min for loading dose and then an infusion of 1 gram over 8 hours Found Improvement in survival…
Read MoreContributor: Aaron Lessen, MD Educational Pearls: DEVT Trial, a recent non-inferiority study, looked at giving tPA prior to endovascular thrombectomy and was stopped early because there was no benefit shown to giving tPA before this intervention Coupled with the SKIP and DIRECT MT trials corroborating these findings, it appears that giving tPA prior to thrombectomy…
Read MoreContributor: Peter Bakes, MD Educational Pearls: Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is normally stratified into outpatient-candidates vs. inpatient candidates for treatment For outpatient treatment, antibiotic selection is driven by presence or absence of comorbid health conditions (chronic lung/kidney/liver disease, DM, immunocompromised state, alcoholism, asplenia) No comorbidities: High dose amoxicillin, doxycycline, azithromycin Comorbidities: augmentin, cephalosporin, doxycycline, macrolide with…
Read MoreContributor: Aaron Lessen, MD Educational Pearls: Droperidol for sedation in agitated patients in the emergency department was studied compared to ziprasidone (Geodon) and lorazepam (Ativan) Double-blinded RCT showed droperidol was 65% effective to get patients to a good level of sedation in 15 minutes compared to ativan and geodon which were 25-35% effective Droperidol had…
Read MoreContributor: Dylan Luyten, MD Educational Pearls: D10 may be a better alternative to D50 in correcting hypoglycemia Risks of D50: Can cause extravasation injury Risk of rebound hypoglycemia D10 does not have the same risks and has no significant difference in reversal time of hypoglycemia compared to D50 References Kiefer MV, Gene Hern H, Alter…
Read MoreEducational Pearls: The CDC has made new formal recommendations for treating Gonorrhea due to increasing resistance to Rocephin and Azithromycin. New recommendations: Confirmed gonorrhea: Ceftriaxone 500 mg once Empiric treatment: Ceftriaxone 500 mg once followed by 7 days Doxycycline 100 mg BID No longer using Azithromycin due to high resistance Second line: Gentamycin IM Cefixime…
Read MoreContributor: Don Stader, MD Educational Pearls: Zyprexa (olanzapine) is a second generation antipsychotic with multiple other uses Excellent for treating nausea in patients undergoing chemotherapy or with THC hyperemesis syndrome Helps with the psychological and emotional aspect of pain Effective in treatment of headaches Can be given under the tongue Fewer incidences of dystonic reactions…
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