Department Blog

Visit the conference website at www.thecrashingpatient.com for more details and to register.

In his role as the medical director for the Baltimore City Fire Department, Wade Gaasch, MD, is serving as a co-principal investigator for a study supported by the NIH Clinical Trial Planning Grant Program (R34), titled "Enhanced Brief Intervention for Linking Opiate-Using EMS Patients to Treatment." The grant was awarded to the Department of Health, Behavior and Society in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Heath, with the fire department as a subrecipient.

Amal Mattu, MD, was honored with the prestigious Peter Rosen Award during the 2013 Annual Assembly of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine, held in Las Vegas in February. The award recognizes outstanding contributions to the Academy in the area of academic leadership. Amal has served on several AAEM committees, has edited and contributed to many of the organization’s publications, and has been an invited speaker at every national AAEM conference since 2001. This is the fifth award that AAEM has bestowed on Amal to recognize his contributions and leadership.

The Elizabeth L. "Betty" Tso, MD, Endowed Professorship Fund is accepting contributions toward its sustaining principle. This fund, named in honor of one of the founding members of our department, and one of our most beloved faculty members, will support a faculty position dedicated to advancing our educational programs. If you would like to contribute to this fund, please contact Sheila Young in the Development Office at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. You can reach Sheila at syoung@som.umaryland.edu or 410-706-0106.

J.V. Nable and Ben Lawner presented lectures at the paramedic refresher course sponsored by the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, in late February. Seventy paramedics from across the country were trained during this 4-day program.

Bryan Hayes, Mike Winters, Brian Browne, and Jon Mark Hirshon published an article titled “To-Go Medications for Decreasing ED Return Visits” in the November 2012 issue of The American Journal of Emergency Medicine. Their co-authors on this paper were Leila Zaharna and Agnes Ann Feemster from Clinical Pharmacy and Investigational Drug Services, UMMC.

Dr. Rob Rogers’ podcast, “Educational Guides” (www.medEDmasters.com), was cited as one of “10 Clicks to Being a Savvier Clinician” by Medscape, part of the WebMD Health Professional Network.

The first session of the new Critical Procedures in Emergency Medicine course is scheduled for April 17th! The course, the first of it's kind to be offered at the University of Maryland, sold out very quickly and is scheduled to be offered again in October. Using a combination of classroom instruction and a cadaver lab, participants will have the opportunity to practice critical care invasive procedures in a controlled environment. The course directors, Drs. Mak Moayedi and Mike Abraham, designed the course with emergency medicine professionals in mind and structured it so participants will receive a 2:1 instructor to participant teaching environment and a 1:1 participant to cadaver experience.

The course will be offered again on October 29th as a pre-conference workshop to the 2nd Annual Crashing Patient Conference. Contact Kristin Cioffi for more information.

Please join me is welcoming our newest faculty member, Dr. Rajagopal Srinivasan.

Dr. Srinivasan attended Emory University SOM and completed his residency at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 2007. Since that time, he has been a member of the medical staff at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center in Johnstown, PA.

He will be working full time on the clinical staff at Bon Secours hospital. Please join me in welcoming him to our team!

A 56 yo woman presents with hypotension, bradycardia, chest pain, and diaphoresis. ACLS probably won't help you here (and it's not hyperK this time!).

Want to know how the ECG can help you distinguish among the various causes of bradycardia? Give 14 minutes of your time to this video and you'll find out.