PEM Source

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All posts with tag: "scholarly"

PEM Questions

(Click the link to comment and to vote - voting not working through email, sorry!)

A PEM group is performing a quality improvement initiative to improve ED flow in the busy evening shift of their 12-bed PED. They implement a fast-track using three patient care rooms, one nurse, and one physician. They gather data after implementation but find that ED flow is not improved because of the loss of ¼ of their patient care rooms to the new fast track. They then adjust their initiative to using only two rooms and re-gather data. 

[yop_poll id="277"]

(Click the link to comment and to vote - voting not working through email, sorry!) You are studying a new rapid flu test’s performance in your ED. Using PCR as a gold standard, you studied 100 kids at the peak of flu season, of whom 60 had influenza and 40 did not. Of the 60 who had influenza by PCR, 54 had a positive rapid flu test, and of the 40 who did not have influenza by PCR, 2 had a positive rapid flu test. [yop_poll id="74"]
(Click the link to comment and to vote - voting not working through email, sorry!) You design a study to compare a new antiviral to treat herpangina to placebo. During the trial, some of the parents stop giving their children the new drug because it tastes bad, and some (but fewer) parents stop giving their children the placebo because they forget to give it. During the analysis, you compare the outcomes based on the patients’ assignment to their original group. [yop_poll id="52"]
(Click the link to comment and to vote - voting not working through email, sorry!) You design a trial comparing two different techniques for draining skin abscesses: standard I&D with packing vs. loop drainage. Your chosen outcome is the proportion of patients that require a second drainage procedure. You expect to enroll 100 patients in each group, and expect an average of 10% to require a second drainage procedure. [yop_poll id="41"]
You are conducting a study to compare the efficacy of a new bronchodilator against standard albuterol therapy in patients with acute asthma exacerbations. To reduce the possibility of selection bias in your study, the key element in your study design is: A. Blinding study participants so that they do not know which treatment has been selected for them, and do not change their subjective assessment of improvement in asthma symptoms B. Enrolling sufficient numbers of study participants to ensure an accurate estimate of the difference in treatment effects C. Randomizing study participants to ensure that the two groups studied are equivalent in potential confounding factors D. Only enrolling study participants > 2 years old, to avoid selecting bronchiolitis patients instead of asthma patients Also, if you’re interested in the Peds ID Antibiotics Question of the Week, you can find it here
According to the Belmont report, the 3 main ethical principles for conducting research involving human subjects are: A) Beneficence, nonmaleficence, justice B) Respect for persons, beneficence, justice C) Respect for persons, beneficence, nonmaleficence D) Beneficence, justice, informed consent E) Nonmaleficence, justice, informed consent
In a population of 1,000 people, 100 have a disease. A test is positive in 95 people with the disease and 100 people without the disease. What is the sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive value of this test?

Tips and Tricks

As patients and parents observe shelter-in-place recommendations, PED volumes are down nationwide. On slow shifts, we are all looking for opportunities and resources to educate ourselves and our trainees. MedEdGuru has a great resource catalog of educational offerings, and there's a handy "pediatric specific" checkbox below the filters as well! Open Pediatrics also has two great simulators (also linked from the PEMsource FOAM page): a Ventilator Simulator and a fun ED simulator (pick VS Peds for pediatric only patients) complete with interruptions and multiple roomed patients. Finally, PEMsource offers 100 PED Cases to go through, ordered in groups of 10 from neonates to teens, and PEM Playbook has an amazing array of podcasts with informative show notes

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