Introduction: Pediatric residents are increasingly pursuing global health electives. Differences in cultural norms and management around pediatric deaths in resource-limited settings can be emotionally overwhelming for residents. Educational resources are needed to better equip them for handling these stressful situations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEmergency medicine (EM) is rapidly being recognized as a specialty around the globe. This has particular promise for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) that experience the largest burden of disease for emergency conditions. Specialty education and training in EM remain essentially an apprenticeship model.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The World Health Organization aims to reduce worldwide under-five mortality rates (U5MR), with a focus on resource-limited settings (RLS). Tanzania reports a mean U5MR of 54 per 1000 live births, largely due to treatable infectious diseases that may lead to sepsis, accounting for 40% of the under-five deaths. Bugando Medical Centre in Mwanza, Tanzania represents a resource-limited setting in Sub-Saharan Africa and estimates a 14% pediatric mortality rate.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPediatric emergency medicine physicians may be able to use point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) as a tool to evaluate abdominal wall masses. We present a case of a 2-month-old infant with a lower abdominal mass identified as a hernia sac by POCUS. It was initially thought to represent a Spigelian-type abdominal wall hernia but subsequently determined to be an unusual presentation of an inguinal hernia with testicular entrapment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To determine the impact of a cerebrospinal fluid enterovirus polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test performance on hospital length of stay (LOS) in a large multicenter cohort of infants undergoing evaluation for central nervous system infection.
Study Design: We performed a planned secondary analysis of a retrospective cohort of hospitalized infants ≤60 days of age who had a cerebrospinal fluid culture obtained at 1 of 18 participating centers (2005-2013). After adjustment for patient age and study year as well as clustering by hospital center, we compared LOS for infants who had an enterovirus PCR test performed vs not performed and among those tested, for infants with a positive vs negative test result.
Magnets are inherently attractive to young children, but present a risk when ingested. If consumed alone, small, smooth magnetic foreign bodies are likely to pass without significant event; however, ingestion of multiple magnets may have catastrophic consequences, including bowel perforation, obstruction, peritonitis, and death. Increasing reports of morbidity and mortality in recent years from the US National Electronic Injury Surveillance System has led to numerous safety statements from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as several product recalls from the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMigraines are common, incapacitating, and often stress inducing for pediatric patients and parents alike. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, more than 1 million Americans seek emergency care every year due to migraines, with increasing frequency among adolescents. The disease can vary in severity and character, often mimicking life-threatening conditions, requiring prompt nuanced recognition by emergency personnel and implementation of an effective treatment strategy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHeadaches are a common complaint among children, with increasing frequency in adolescence. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, more than 3 million Americans seek emergency care every year due to headaches, and one-third of them are attributable to migraines. Headaches have a significant impact on the lives of children and adolescents, resulting in school absence, decreased extracurricular activities, and poor academic achievement.
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