Availability and use of medications by prehospital providers trained to manage medical complications of patients in hazardous materials incidents.

Introduction: Little is known about prehospital availability and use of medications to treat patients from hazardous materials (hazmat) medical emergencies. The aim of this study was to identify the availability and frequency of use of medications for patients in hazmat incidents by paramedics with advanced training to care for these patients.

Methods: A prospectively validated survey was distributed to United States paramedics with advanced training in the medical management of patients from hazmat incidents who successfully completed a 16-hour Advanced Hazmat Life Support (AHLS) Provider Course from 1999 to 2017.

Timing of Emergency Medicine Student Evaluation Does Not Affect Scoring.

Background: Evaluation of medical students rotating through the emergency department (ED) is an important formative and summative assessment method. Intuitively, delaying evaluation should affect the reliability of this assessment method, however, the effect of evaluation timing on scoring is unknown.

Objective: A quality-improvement project evaluating the timing of end-of-shift ED evaluations at the University of Arizona was performed to determine whether delay in evaluation affected the score.