Within our respective specialties, we often set our sights to new beginnings and adventures. With the passage of the resolution 44 by the American College of Emergency Physicians this past October and a recent post written by Bryan Hayes (@PharmERToxGuy) on Academic Life in Emergency Medicine describing in detail the training of EM pharmacists, I have been contemplating the general progression of the initiation and establishment of emergency medicine pharmacy, with ideas mainly surrounding the theme of "Where [...]

Live conference tweeting has grown to become quite commonplace in recent years. Conference organizers will often designate a specific hashtag for enhanced and engaged communication among attendees and non-attendees alike during the day(s) of the conference. Some of the basic concepts related to live conference tweeting have been discussed by Nikita Joshi (@njoshi8) and Bryan Hayes (@PharmERToxGuy) on the Academic Life in Emergency Medicine blog, and Rob Rogers (@EM_Educator) hosted a pro-con debate related to [...]

In this episode of what will hopefully become a series covering topics related to global pharmacy practice, we have featured Mark McIntyre, an EM pharmacist who practices at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.Listen to the podcast by clicking the link below (link available on iTunes here):EMPOWER Episode 5 - Global Pharmacy Practice: Comparisons of USA versus CanadaShow Notes: Time Topic 0:00-0:26 Musical Introduction 0:26-3:09 Introduction to episode featuring Mark McIntyre, PharmD 3:10 Culture [...]

In recent months of giving presentations to both future and seasoned pharmacy practitioners, I have been able to garner a new category of feedback from audience members that was never the case previously. It has been quite interesting to gain a new focus of feedback for my presentations, but I think it speaks volumes to how far we have come and how far we need to go when it comes to the provision of medical [...]

I work at an institution with a Children’s Hospital attached to it, which means that we encounter a fair amount of pediatric patients in the emergency department (ED). One of the most common complaints of children presenting to the ED is fever.Acetaminophen is a routinely administered medication in this population. I recently had the opportunity to review a policy of standing orders for triage nurses in our ED that may be carried out before a [...]

I think that given the very name of this blog and what it represents, it would be extremely remiss if I did not write about such a historic event that unfolded at the annual meeting of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), which is currently being held in Chicago this week. For the first time, ACEP is now recognizing and supporting the presence and various roles EM pharmacists as members of the multidisciplinary team [...]

Article to be discussed:Driver BE, et al. Use of esmolol after failure of standard cardiopulmonary resuscitation to treat patients with refractory ventricular fibrillation. Resuscitation, 2014; 85:1337-1341. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqkad-ZD-7w?version=3&f=user_uploads&c=google-webdrive-0&app=youtube_gdata&w=320&h=266]

As I have developed a method to my practice (and madness) as an emergency medicine pharmacist, there are certain medications that, for me, fall under one of two categories: those that I have grown to love…and those that I have grown to not be a fan of and can generally live without, even in the absence of drug shortages. For me, parenteral hydralazine falls under the latter category. Why? As many of us already know, [...]

This week I had an opportunity to waive my pharmaco-nerd flag with the online release of the ARISE trial.  I could have bought myself a psych eval ticket the way I was running around my shared office with the other pharmacy faculty, printing off copies to share in the ED and asking everyone else what they thought of ARISE, ProCESS and what... oh God what will ProMISE show!? But my excitement aside, the paper should be read [...]

This week I had an opportunity to waive my pharmaco-nerd flag with the online release of the ARISE trial.  I could have bought myself a psych eval ticket the way I was running around my shared office with the other pharmacy faculty, printing off copies to share in the ED and asking everyone else what they thought of ARISE, ProCESS and what... oh God what will ProMISE show!? But my excitement aside, the paper should be read [...]