Department Blog

Douglas Sward, MD, was a faculty member for the 4th Mid-Atlantic Student Wilderness Medicine Conference, held last weekend in Philadelphia. He led a workshop on “Search and Rescue: Initial Actions and Reflex Tasks.” The event was hosted by the Wilderness and Disaster Medicine Society of the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University.

Rosemary Kozar, MD, PhD, from the Department of Surgery and STAR-ORC, and Ben Lawner, DO, MS, EMT-P, collaborated on a presentation about the preparations for and responses to last year’s civil unrest and riots in Baltimore from the perspectives of the University of Maryland Medical Center and the Baltimore City Fire Department. They were featured speakers during Medical Disaster Response 2016, a conference presented in Las Vegas on March 20 by the American College of Surgeons. The aim of the conference was to present practical information that trauma care providers can use to improve disaster response plans. Attendees included trauma surgeons, emergency physicians, and other specialists in emergency preparedness and disaster response.

Ken Butler, DO, presented two lectures at the Spring Seminar of the American College of Osteopathic Emergency Physicians, which was held in Scottsdale, Arizona, last week. The titles of his presentations were "Comas, Concussions, Contusions: A Review of Traumatic Brain Injury” and “Breathe Easy: Cutting-Edge Airway Management.”

Michael Witting, MD, MS, and Siamak Moayedi, MD, CDEM, published the article “Advanced Intravenous Access: Technique Choices, Pain Scores, and Failure Rates in a Local Registry” in the March issue of The American Journal of Emergency Medicine. Their investigation, supported by a grant from the Maryland Emergency Medicine Network, found that external jugular vein cannulation was established quicker, with fewer skin punctures and a lower rate of post-insertion failures, than ultrasound-guided cannulation of a peripheral vein. Their co-authors are Zhaoxin Yang, BS, a student at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and Cheryll Mack, MPA, BS, RN, who worked in the adult emergency department at the University of Maryland Medical Center at the time of the study

Douglas Sward, MD, Kinjal Sethuraman, MD, MPH, and Robert Rosenthal, MD, published the article “Carbon Monoxide and ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction: Case Reports” in the January/February 2016 issue of Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine.

Terry Mulligan DO, MPH, was elected to the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine at the organization’s 22nd Annual Scientific Assembly, held in Las Vegas in late February. He also chairs the organization’s International Emergency Medicine Committee and Government Affairs Committee.

Hong Kim, MD, MPH, is the lead author of the article titled “Reversal of Opioid-Induced Ventilatory Depression Using Low-Dose Naloxone (0.04 Mg): A Case Series,” published in the March 2016 issue of The Journal of Medical Toxicology. His co-author is Lewis Nelson, MD, from New York University School of Medicine/Bellevue Hospital Center.

R. Gentry Wilkerson, MD, and Bryan D. Hayes, PharmD, published a letter in this month's issue of Clinical Toxicology. They were reacting to a case description in the October issue of the same journal, in which a patient’s uvular edema was linked to MDMA and treated with icatibant. Drs. Wilkerson and Hayes advised caution about the assumption that the drug induced the angioedema and about the use of such an expensive medication when a causative link is questionable.

Amal Mattu, MD, is a co-author of the article titled “The Electrocardiogram in the ACS Patient: High-Risk Electrocardiographic Presentations Lacking Anatomically Oriented ST-Segment Elevation,” published in the March issue of The American Journal of Emergency Medicine. In this article, Dr. Mattu and his colleagues from the University of Virginia School of Medicine and Madison County EMS in Virginia review five electrocardiographic patterns (“STEMI equivalents”) caused by occlusion of an epicardial coronary artery, which threatens the left ventricle and thus heightens the risk of poor patient outcome without prompt recognition and intervention.

Mike Abraham, MD, is the lead author of an article on the diagnosis and treatment of influenza, published in the March issue of The Journal of Emergency Medicine. The report was approved by the Clinical Guidelines Committee of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine. One of Mike's co-authors on this paper is Jack Perkins, MD, a 2007 graduate of our EM/IM residency, who is now on the faculty of Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine in Roanoke. Their article is available at www.jem-journal.com/article/S0736-4679%2815%2901147-6/abstract.