Does this happen in your ED? About half-way through your shift, the triage nurse brings you a restraint order form and asks you to sign it. You ask what is going on and are told that EMS is bringing in a combative patient, so Security is going to meet them at the ambulance entrance to restrain the patient and they need an order to so do.
We have all heard a story that starts with, "Remember that patient you saw and discharged yesterday? Well, ...." This next series of EM Reports tackles one of the most common subjects of such a story: missed heart attacks.
This is the second part of the article on atypical presentations of stroke and TIAs. We start with the same patient we introduced last time and discuss the differential diagnosis of his myriad complaints.
Hypothermia has been recorded throughout history. Galen, personal physician to Marcus Aurelius, wrote in his treatise "Hygiene" that newborns should be wrapped in swaddling clothes because, "it is necessarily going to come in contact with cold and heat."
Patients with anal diseases can be some of the most uncomfortable patients presenting to the emergency department.