Publications by authors named "Paul Mullan"

Objectives: Clinical event debriefing (CED) improves healthcare team performance and patient outcomes. Most pediatric emergency medicine (PEM) physicians do not receive formal training in leading CED. Our objectives were to develop a CED curriculum and evaluate its effect on performance, knowledge, comfort, and clinical practice.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Treatment options for the Triple-Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) subtype remain limited and the outcome for patients with advanced TNBC is very poor. The standard of care is chemotherapy, but approximately 50% of tumors develop resistance.

Methods: We performed gene expression profiling of 58 TNBC tumor samples by microarray, comparing chemosensitive with chemoresistant tumors, which revealed that one of the top upregulated genes was TGFβ2.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Unnecessary diagnostic tests and treatments in children cared for in emergency departments (EDs) do not benefit patients, increase costs, and may result in harm. To address this low-value care, a taskforce of pediatric emergency medicine (PEM) physicians was formed to create the first PEM Choosing Wisely recommendations. Using a systematic, iterative process, the taskforce collected suggested items from an interprofessional group of 33 ED clinicians from 6 academic pediatric EDs.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: An increasing number of pediatric patients with mental and behavioral health (MBH) conditions present to Emergency Department (ED) and inpatient settings with behavioral events that require physical restraint (PR). PR usage is associated with adverse outcomes. Clinical debriefing (CD) programs have been associated with improved performance but have not been studied in this population.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Healthcare workers faced unique challenges during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic which necessitated rapid adaptation. Clinical event debriefings (CEDs) are one tool that teams can use to reflect after events and identify opportunities for improving their performance and their processes. There are few reports of how teams have used CEDs in the COVID-19 pandemic.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Emergency department (ED) teams have had to adjust limited staffing resources to meet the fluctuating levels of patient volume and acuity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Historically, Mondays have had the highest reported ED volumes. We are unaware of any studies reporting on the change of this Monday effect during the COVID-19 pandemic.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: Pediatric sepsis guidelines recommend rapid intravenous fluid (IVF) bolus administration rates (BAR). Recent sepsis studies suggest that rapid BAR may be associated with increased morbidity. We aimed to describe the association between emergency department (ED) IVF BAR and clinical outcomes in pediatric sepsis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Cancers presenting at advanced stages inherently have poor prognosis. High grade serous carcinoma (HGSC) is the most common and aggressive form of tubo-ovarian cancer. Clinical tests to accurately diagnose and monitor this condition are lacking.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Chromosome 17q23 amplification occurs in 20% of primary breast tumours and is associated with poor outcome. The TBX2 gene is located on 17q23 and is often over-expressed in this breast tumour subset. TBX2 is an anti-senescence gene, promoting cell growth and survival through repression of Tumour Suppressor Genes (TSGs), such as NDRG1 and CST6.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Clinical leadership is an essential skill for physicians, empowering them to lead and coordinate teams, communicate clearly under various conditions, model positive behaviors, display emotional intelligence, and ultimately improve patient care outcomes. However, there are currently no standardized residency curricula or competency-based assessments for clinical leadership, as residents often assimilate leadership skills through trial-and-error or observation of their clinical faculty. By utilizing a comprehensive needs assessment and synthesizing evidence-based practices, we developed and implemented a longitudinal and skills-based clinical leadership curriculum for pediatric residents.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Expression of the deubiquitinase USP17 is induced by multiple stimuli, including cytokines (IL-4/6), chemokines (IL-8, SDF1), and growth factors (EGF), and several studies indicate it is required for cell proliferation and migration. However, the mechanisms via which USP17 impacts upon these cellular functions are unclear. Here, we demonstrate that USP17 depletion prevents peripheral lysosome positioning, as well as trafficking of lysosomes to the cell periphery in response to EGF stimulation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Unlabelled: Disparate clinical outcomes have been reported for patients with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) in the emergency department setting, including increased length of stay, diagnostic error rates, readmission rates, and dissatisfaction. Our emergency department had no standard processes for LEP patient identification or interpreter encounter documentation and a higher rate of 48-hour LEP return visits (RV) than English proficient patients. The aim was to eliminate gaps by increasing appropriate interpreter use and documentation (AIUD) for Spanish-speaking LEP (LEP-SS) patients from 35.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Intrahospital transports (IHTs) are high-risk activities with the potential for adverse outcomes. Suboptimal care of a patient in our emergency department (ED) needing IHT to the pediatric intensive care unit (ICU) identified improvement opportunities. We describe implementing a novel checklist (Briefing ED-to-ICU Transport To Exit Ready: BETTER) for improving the IHT safety of pediatric ED patients admitted to the pediatric ICU.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Clinical event debriefing is recommended by the American Heart Association and the European Resuscitation Council, because debriefings improve team performance. The purpose here was to develop and validate tools needed to overcome barriers to debriefing in the emergency department.

Method: This quality improvement project was conducted in 4 phases.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Although clinical leadership in physicians is associated with improved healthcare, leadership training is rarely integrated into residency training. Our objective was to perform a comprehensive needs assessment of our pediatric residents' existing leadership experiences and knowledge and to identify training gaps within our program.

Methods: First, we held focus groups with senior pediatric residents to understand their clinical leadership experiences and identify training needs.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is the most lethal gynaecological malignancy in the western world. The majority of women presenting with the disease are asymptomatic and it has been dubbed the "silent killer". To date there is no effective minimally invasive method of stratifying those with the disease or screening for the disease in the general population.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Multiple guidelines recommend debriefing after clinical events in the emergency department (ED) to improve performance, but their implementation has been limited. We aimed to start a clinical debriefing program to identify opportunities to address teamwork and patient safety during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: We reviewed existing literature on best-practice guidelines to answer key clinical debriefing program design questions.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The prostate cancer (PCa) field lacks clinically relevant, syngeneic mouse models which retain the tumour microenvironment observed in PCa patients. This study establishes a cell line from prostate tumour tissue derived from the mouse, termed DVL3 which when subcutaneously implanted in immunocompetent C57BL/6 mice, forms tumours with distinct glandular morphology, strong cytokeratin 8 and androgen receptor expression, recapitulating high-risk localised human PCa. Compared to the commonly used TRAMP C1 model, generated with SV40 large T-antigen, DVL3 tumours are immunologically cold, with a lower proportion of CD8+ T-cells, and high proportion of immunosuppressive myeloid derived suppressor cells (MDSCs), thus resembling high-risk PCa.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We describe three previously healthy children, admitted from our emergency department (ED) to our free-standing children's hospital, as the first documented cases of croup as a manifestation of SARS-CoV-2 infection. All three cases (ages 11 months, 2 years, and 9 years old) presented with non-specific upper-respiratory-tract symptoms that developed into a barky cough with associated stridor at rest and respiratory distress. All were diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 by polymerase chain reaction testing from nasopharyngeal samples that were negative for all other pathogens including the most common etiologies for croup.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a poor outcome subset of breast cancers characterised by the lack of expression of ER , PR, and HER2 amplification. It is a heterogeneous group of cancers which fail to derive benefit from modern, more targeted treatments such as Tamoxifen and Herceptin. Current standard of care (SoC) is cytotoxic chemotherapy, which is effective for some patients, with other patients deriving little/no benefit and lacking alternative treatments.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the subset of breast cancer associated with the poorest outcome, and currently lacks targeted treatments. Standard of care (SoC) chemotherapy often consists of DNA damaging chemotherapies ± taxanes, with a range of responses observed. However, we currently lack biomarkers to predict this response and lack alternate treatment options.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Postresuscitation debriefing (PRD) addresses Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education core competencies and is recommended by the American Heart Association. Postresuscitation debriefing improves resuscitation outcomes, promotes team morale, supports emotional well-being, and reduces burnout. Despite these benefits, PRD occurs infrequently.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: Effective leadership and teamwork are imperative during pediatric cardiopulmonary resuscitations (CPR). The initial phase of pediatric CPR, termed the "first 5 minutes," has significant care delivery gaps in both leadership and team performance. The aim of the study was to describe the performance data of emergency department (ED) teams who performed CPR in a pediatric ED.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF