Usefulness of intravenous lipid emulsion for cardiac toxicity from cocaine overdose.

The investigators describe the clinical course of a 26-year-old-man who was brought to the emergency department in a comatose state with status epilepticus after smoking a large amount of crack cocaine. In the emergency department, he was intubated because of depressed mental status and respiratory acidosis. His troponin I remained negative, and electrocardiography showed wide-complex tachycardia with a prolonged corrected QT interval.

The effect of clinical experience on the error rate of emergency physicians.

Study Objective: We assess the effect of emergency physicians' clinical experience on the propensity to commit a patient care error.

Methods: Seven years of data from a single emergency department's peer review activities were reviewed for all patient care errors made by emergency physicians. Emergency physician clinical experience was defined as years since completion of residency training during the year each error was made.