Department Blog

Seth Ball, MD, and Sarah Moreland, MD, both EM/PEDS residents, published an aritcle on apparent life-threatening events in newborns and infants in the February/March issue of EM Resident. The authors summarize the elusive differential diagnosis of this presentation and present strategies for ED workup. Most cases will be linked to gastroesophageal reflux, seizure, or respiratory infection, but almost half of patients leave the ED without a clear diagnosis.

Ben Lawner, DO, MS, EMT-P, co-led the workshop titled “Electronic Dance Music, Designer Drugs & Teen Deaths” at the annual meeting of the National Association of EMS Physicians, held last week in San Diego. His co-presenters were Kathleen FitzGibbon, MD, a 2015 graduate of the University of Maryland School of Medicine (now an EM resident at Christiana Care Health System), Matt Levy, DO, MSc, NREMTP, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Johns Hopkins and a leader in that department's Division of Special Operations, and Kevin Seaman, MD, Executive Director of the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems. The focus of the workshop was the current craze of teens ingesting designer drugs in an attempt to have psychedelic experiences at concerts. Some of those attempts have been fatal. The workshop leaders reviewed recent literature on the topic and discussed evidence-based practices for response and treatment.

Dr. Joe Martinez and Dr. Adam Geroff published a clinical image and patient vignette about Sister Mary Joseph’s nodule in the Visual Diagnosis column of the January issue of The Journal of Emergency Medicine. Sister Mary Joseph (Julia) Dempsey, a surgical assistant at St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota, at the turn of the 19th century, brought this ominous indication of abdominal cancer to the attention of Dr. William Mayo, who published a paper about it in 1928. The eponym was first used, posthumously for Sister Mary Joseph, by Dr. Hamilton Bailey, in a book chapter published in 1949.

The February issue of Emergency Medicine Clinics of North America, on the topic of respiratory emergencies, contains articles written by two EM faculty members. Michael Winters, MD, with co-author Michael Allison, MD (a 2015 graduate of our 6-year EM/IM/CCM residency and now a critcal care attending at St. Agnes Hospital), contributed the article titled “Noninvasive Ventilation for the Emergency Physician.” Haney Mallemat, MD, co-authored the article titled “Emergency Department Treatment of the Mechanically Ventilated Patient.” Amal Mattu, MD, Consulting Editor for the Clinics series, provided the foreword for this issue.

Drs. Jon Mark Hirshon and Doug Floccare have updated their Cochrane review, “Helicopter Emergency Medical Services for Adults with Major Trauma.” Their new work was published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews on December 15, 2015, with co-authors Drs. Samuel Galvagno, Robert Sikorski, and Christopher Stephens from the Department of Anesthesiology; Ms. Deirdre Beecher, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Cochrane Injuries Group; and Dr. Stephen Thomas, Hamad General Hospital & Weill Cornell Medical College, Doha, Qatar.

Ashley Strobel, MD, Vikramjit Gill, MD, and Michael Witting, MD, MS, collaborated with Getachew Teshome, MD, MPH, from the Department of Pediatrics, on the study that led to their article published in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine: “Emergency Diagnostic Testing for Pediatric Nonfebrile Seizures” (33:1261-1264, 2015).

Darlene Robinson, MD, MPH, is the author of the case report titled “Adrenal Mass Causing Secondary Hypertension,” published in the November issue of The Journal of Emergency Medicine. The manuscript was accepted outright (no revisions requested) by the journal’s editor in June.

Ben Lawner, DO, MS, EMT-P, delivered the keynote address (“Critical Care in the Air - and Everywhere!”) at this year’s Eastern Shore Emergency and Critical Care Symposium, held at Chesapeake College in Wye Mills, Maryland, on November 12. This annual conference is sponsored by Maryland ExpressCare, the regional communications and critical care transport system, and attended by critical care transport and hospital-based professionals from the University of Maryland Medical System network. Among the many University of Maryland faculty members who presented lectures at this evening were Walter Atha, MD, Regional Director, Eastern Shore Emergency Medicine, and Thomas Chiccone, MD, an emergency physician at the Memorial Hospital at Easton.

Amal Mattu, MD, presented the keynote address, “Managing Cardiac Arrest: 2015 and Beyond,” at the Scientific Conference sponsored by the Emirates Society of Emergency Medicine, held in Abu Dhabi in early December. During the conference, he presented lectures titled “Myocardial Infarction in the Presence of Left Bundle Branch Block” and “CT Angiography for the Diagnosis of Acute Coronary Syndromes.” In addition, he led an 8-hour preconference Advanced ECG Workshop that covered cardiac ischemia, ischemia mimics/confounders, and dysrhythmias.

Ben Lawner, DO, MS, EMT-P, presented a lecture titled "Where We Are with RSI: Through the Glottic Opening" at the 36th Annual Virginia EMS Symposium, held in Norfolk in mid-November. This conference brings together more than 1500 EMS providers from across the state to earn continuing education credits and review recent advances in prehospital care.