UMEM Educational Pearls

I found this neat little pearl on Michelle Lin's blog, Academic Life in Emergency Medicine, and thought it was worth sharing with everyone:

"In my theme of detoxifying malodorous smells in the ED (see Toxic Sock Syndrome and abscess drainage), I recently learned of a new way of masking odors. Imagine the stress on your olfactory nerves from the combined effects of urinary and fecal incontinence from a nursing home patient.

An ingenious nurse proposed nebulizing actual coffee within the room. Unfortunately, our ED was out of coffee at the moment.

Trick of the Trade:
Nebulized orange juice

I only learned of this trick after walking into the patient's very subtly foggy room. About 4 cc of orange juice had been nebulizing for a few minutes. The room smelled a little like a Jamba Juice (a smoothies/ juice shop). Quite pleasant actually. I was shocked to find that it masked the odors quite well."

Thanks for the tip, Michelle. Freshly-squeezed anyone??

References

Michelle Lin, Academic Life in Emergency Medicine

http://academiclifeinem.blogspot.com