Influence of Body Mass Index on the Evaluation and Management of Pediatric Abdominal Pain in the Emergency Department.

Childhood obesity is a serious concern in the United States, with over one third of the pediatric population classified as obese. Abdominal pain is one of the most common chief complaints among pediatric emergency department (ED) visits. We hypothesized that overweight and obese children being evaluated in the ED for abdominal pain would have higher resource utilization than their normal and underweight peers.

The impact of fellowship-trained medical toxicology faculty on emergency medicine resident in-training examination scores.

Background: The American Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM) In Training Exam (ITE) gauges residents' medical knowledge and has been shown to correlate with subsequent performance on the ABEM board qualifying examination. It is common for emergency medicine (EM) residencies to employ subspecialty-trained faculty members with the expectation of improved resident education and subspecialty knowledge. We hypothesized that the presence of subspecialty faculty in toxicology would increase residents' scores on the toxicology portion of the ITE.

The incidence of self-harm ingestions in adolescents and young adults at a tertiary care center.

Background: There has been an increasing incidence of self-harm attempts in recent years in the United States. Particularly concerning, there has been a growing trend of self-harm in the adolescent and young adult population. In order to inform initiatives to address this trend, risk factors and substances used for self-harm need to be clarified.