Say you have any one of the following three scenarios in a patient who requires local anesthesia for repairing a minor wound laceration in the emergency department: 1 – Documented allergy to “-caine” agents (now, before you grumble…the patient assures you that this is a true allergy; yes, the whole nine yards with full-blown anaphylaxis that occurred years ago with some “-caine”). 2 – Shortage of all forms of parenteral lidocaine 1% and 2% (not [...]

So long ratios!We've covered epinephrine use and misadventures on this blog numerous times. (Megan's post here, Nadia's here, mine here). One thing that they all have in common is brining up the risk of dosing errors as a result of it unique ratio expression format for its concentration. But those days are numbered.Starting in May 2016, the ratio expression format for drug concentrations will no longer be permitted according to the December 2015 ISMP Acute Care [...]

As if you needed another reason to like rocuronium. I'm certain many of you are aware of this neat trick but I just discovered it while restocking the RSI kit. Good guy rocuronium wants you to reduce medication errors by labeling your syringes!Take a look: on this particular manufacturer's vial the label has an arrow in the top right corner of the orange area. Until literally 5 minutes ago, I thought it was nothing. But [...]