Continuing Education for Prehospital Healthcare Providers in India - A Novel Course and Concept.

Background: Emergency medical services (EMS) in India face enormous challenges in providing care to a geographically expansive and diverse patient population. Over the last decade, the public-private-partnership GVK EMRI (Emergency Management and Research Institute) has trained over 100,000 emergency medical technicians (EMTs), with greater than 21,000 currently practicing, to address this critical gap in the healthcare workforce. With the rapid development and expansion of EMS, certain aspects of specialty development have lagged behind, including continuing education requirements.

Adult Epiglottitis: A Case Series.

Introduction: Emergency Departments are inundated by patients with respiratory illness during the winter months. Emergency physicians are required to quickly identify critically ill patients among the large volume of patients with mild upper respiratory illness. Among these life-threatening conditions is acute epiglottitis.

Spontaneous pneumomediastinum on bedside ultrasound: case report and review of the literature.

Spontaneous pneumomediastinum is a rare disease process with no clear etiology, although it is thought to be related to changes in intrathoracic pressure causing chest pain and dyspnea. We present a case of a 17-year-old male with acute chest pain evaluated initially by bedside ultrasound, which showed normal lung sliding but poor visualization of the parasternal and apical cardiac views due to significant air artifact, representing air in the thoracic cavity. The diagnosis was later verified by chest radiograph.

Evaluation of peak pressure gradients in patients after melody valve implantation: a comparison of cardiac catheterization and doppler echocardiography.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine and quantify the relationship between Doppler echocardiography and cardiac catheterization measurements of the peak right ventricle-pulmonary artery (RV-PA) pressure gradient in patients within 24 hours of Melody valve implantation for treatment of a dysfunctional RV outflow tract (RVOT) conduit or bioprosthetic valve (BPV).

Background: Patients with a dysfunctional RVOT conduit or BPV are now routinely treated percutaneously with implantation of a Melody valve. However, often the postimplantation catheter measurements of the RV-PA peak gradient do not match the postimplant echo-derived gradients obtained after completion of the procedure.

Antitumor effects of the investigational selective MEK inhibitor TAK733 against cutaneous and uveal melanoma cell lines.

Background: TAK733 is a novel allosteric, non-ATP-binding, inhibitor of the BRAF substrates MEK-1/2.

Methods: The growth inhibitory effects of TAK733 were assessed in a panel of 27 cutaneous and five uveal melanoma cell lines genotyped for driver oncogenic mutations. Flow cytometry, Western blots and metabolic tracer uptake assays were used to characterize the changes induced by exposure to TAK733.