An Innovative Inexpensive Portable Pulmonary Edema Intubation Simulator.

Audience: This pulmonary edema intubation simulator is designed to instruct paramedics, medical students, emergency medicine residents, emergency medical services fellows, and attending physicians.

Introduction: Acute pulmonary edema results in respiratory distress and may require endotracheal intubation. On occasion, pulmonary edema can result in copious amounts of pink, frothy sputum in the airway, complicating intubation by hindering the intubator's view.

A survey of simulation fellowship programs.

Background: A number of specialized educational programs (i.e., simulation fellowships) have been developed, but their characteristics are not well known.

The Family Education Rights and Privacy Act's impact on residency applicant behavior and recommendations: a pilot study.

Background: The Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) provides residency applicants the right to view letters of recommendation. Applicants must indicate whether they waive this right.

Objectives: We determined how frequently applicants to an emergency medicine residency program waived the right to view letters of recommendation and whether such decisions impacted the letters' contents.

Evaluation of prehospital use of furosemide in patients with respiratory distress.

Objective: To evaluate the appropriateness of prehospital use of furosemide.

Methods: All patients over 18 years old receiving prehopsital furosemide were retrospectively identified, and cases were matched to subsequent hospital records. Data collected included ED and hospital primary and secondary diagnoses, brain-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) levels and final disposition.

General competencies are intrinsic to emergency medicine training: a multicenter study.

Objectives: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has promulgated six areas called General Competencies (GCs) that residency programs are required to evaluate. The authors sought to determine if these domains were an intrinsic part of emergency medicine (EM) residency training by using a global assessment evaluation device.

Methods: This was an observational, multicenter, cross-sectional study that compared GC acquisition between first-, second-, and third-year (EM1, EM2, and EM3) residents.

The effect of a new emergency medicine residency program on patient length of stay in a community hospital emergency department.

Objectives: It is not clear how emergency medicine residents affect emergency department (ED) efficiency. The objective of this study was to determine whether a new emergency medicine residency program affected the length of stay (LOS) of patients in a community hospital ED.

Methods: A before-and-after observational study was conducted during a one-year period prior to, and for three years after, the start of a new residency.