Department Blog

The American Board of Emergency Medicine has released its 2025 reading list for ABEM-certified physicians preparing to meet Lifelong Learning and Self-Assessment (LLSA) requirements. The list includes “High-dose nitroglycerin infusion description of safety and efficacy in sympathetic crashing acute pulmonary edema: the HI-DOSE SCAPE study” by Professor Amal Mattu, MD, and UMMC clinical pharmacy specialists Ashley Martinelli, PharmD, Wesley D. Oliver, PharmD, Brandon Houseman, PharmD, and Sandeep Devabhakthuni, PharmD. Ten articles are selected annually for the list.

Assistant Professor Cheyenne Falat, MD, discussed hypothermia and safety measures for extreme cold weather in an interview with FOX45 Morning News on Nov. 29, as Baltimore City issued its first Code Blue for extreme cold. Instructor Sarah Lee, MD, was interviewed for “Why you feel more aches and pains in the cold weather — and what you can do about it,” published Dec. 8 by Fox News online and reprinted in the New York Post and on Yahoo! News.

Associate Professor Quincy Tran, MD, PhD, is among the authors of “Sustainable surgical resource initiative for Haiti: the SSRI-Haiti project,” published in Global Health Action. 2023;16:1. Begun after the 2010 earthquake, the capacity-building project was designed to deliver staff training support and visiting medical personnel for two operating rooms and an intensive care unit at St. Luke's Medical Center in Port-au-Prince and a remote surgical center in Port-Salut.

Zachary Dezman, MD, MS, Clinical Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Epidemiology and Public Health, together with 3 representatives of the Federation of American Scientists, submitted a comment to the US Food and Drug Administration recommending steps to address the systemic bias arising from the use of pulse oximeters. Contributing to the comment were Adjunct Professors of Pediatrics Roderick King, MD, MPH and Joseph Wright, MD, MPH, and EM physician Joel E. Klein, MD.

Emergency Medicine resident Christina M. Sajak, MD, Assistant Professor Kevin M. Semelrath, MD, Associate Professor Laura J. Bontempo, MD, MEd, and Assistant Professor T. Andrew Windsor, MD authored “45-year-old Male with Bilateral Lower Extremity Wounds, Swelling, and Rash,” published February 9 in Clinical Practice and Cases in Emergency Medicine. 2023;7(1):9-14. DOI: 10.5811/cpcem.2022.11.58813

Clinical Associate Professor Zachary Dezman, MD, MS, participated in panel discussions as part of “Understanding Fatal Overdoses to Inform Product Development and Public Health Interventions to Manage Overdose” March 8-9, a virtual program hosted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA to explore clinical and public health responses to fatal overdoses of fentanyl and other street drugs.

Associate Professor Ben Lawner, DO, MS, was an invited speaker at the annual conference of the National Collegiate EMS Foundation held Feb. 24-26, 2023 in Boston. Dr. Lawner lectured on mass casualty triage and transport, and hosted ECG and intubation skills labs at the conference, which drew more than 1,000 campus-based EMS providers from across the country.

EM faculty led the development of two recent issues of Emergency Medicine Clinics of North America. Assistant Professor Kim Boswell, MD, was a guest editor of the February 2023 issue on Trauma Emergencies, with authors including Associate Professors Wendy Chang, MD and Dan Haase, MD, Assistant Professors Jennifer Guyther, MD and Ashley Menne, MD, and senior resident Rachel Wiltjer, DO. Assistant Professor Leen Alblaihed, MBBS, MHA, was a guest editor of the November 2022 issue on Cardiovascular Emergencies. The issue included articles by Professor Michael Bond, MD, Assistant Professor Kami Hu, MD, EM physicians Tareq Al-Salamah, MD, MPH, and Phil Magidson, MD, MPH, and residency grads Robert Brown, MD, Aki Honasoge, MD, and Jobin Philip, MD.

Dean Mark T. Gladwin, MD, delivered the keynote address at the first Emergency Medicine Translational Research conference, presented jointly by the Eureka Institute for Translational Medicine and the National Foundation of Emergency Medicine (NFEM) Feb. 1-3 in San Diego. Speakers from the Department of Emergency Medicine included Professor and Chair Brian J. Browne, MD, Professor and Director of Research Stephen R. Thom, MD, PhD, and Associate Professor Gentry Wilkerson, MD. Attending the conference as invited scholars were Department of Emergency Medicine assistant professors J. David Gatz, MD, Dan Gingold, MD, MPH, and Alexis Salerno, MD, and clinical assistant professor Zachary Dezman, MD, MS.

Clinical Assistant Professor Kyle R. Fischer, MD, MPH, Clinical Associate Professor Zachary Z.W. Dezman, MD, MS, and Research Associate Benoit Stryckman, MA, are among the authors of Illicit Fentanyl Exposure Among Victims of Violence, published Dec. 8, 2022 in the Journal of Surgical Research. This study found that patients injured by violence who used illicit fentanyl had higher rates of ventilator usage, more ICU admissions, and more trauma center encounters than violent injury victims who did not use fentanyl. The authors suggest fentanyl testing of patients injured by violence could identify candidates for violence prevention services and substance abuse treatment.