EM REMS – Radiology In Emergency Medicine – A Blog Useful For All Primary Care Physicians

EM REMS – Radiology In Emergency Medicine is an excellent website useful for all primary care physicians and Dr. Jones, creator and editor of the site, states:

EMREMS is a free educational website created for the sharing of interesting radiology cases in Emergency Medicine. Case-based learning is one of the mainstays in medical education and is the premise of EMREMS. I have categorized the images based on trauma and non-trauma imaging. Please feel free to use images for teaching purposes (and feel free to send me images to share with others). These images are intended for all different levels of training: some will be simple images intended for entry-level EM education…some will be more challenging. All are intended to increase our quality of care in the emergency department.

The site was created in May of 2012 by Russel Jones MD.  Dr. Jones is an assistant professor of Emergency Medicine .

There is a Student Corner section which is curated by Jaymin Patel who is currently a medical student at the UC School of Medicine, Davis. He is an assistant editor of the site and the creator of the Student Corner.

An example of one of the posts is Student Corner: Ultrasound Approach to DVT:

Deep venous thromboses are thought to occur in as many as 1 in 1000 people annually1, although many instances never present to urgent care or emergency room settings. When a patient does make it to the ER, the most common presentation is a swollen, tender lower extremity. Although there are many things on the differential, the emergency room physician must rule out DVT because of the potential risk of subsequent pulmonary embolism.

Ultrasound has become the go-to method for evaluation of DVT. In the ER setting, the limited compression ultrasound technique is most widely used due to the ease and speed at which it can be performed. A duplex scan with color Doppler can be useful in other scenarios, but these evaluations can take up to an hour, require a skilled technician, and have not been shown to be any more accurate in detection of proximal DVTs compared to limited compression ultrasound2. . . .

A second nice example of the posts is Student Corner: CT Evaluation of Appendicitis:

Appendicitis is commonly encountered in the ER and is the leading cause of surgical emergency in the abdomen. The initial evaluation for a presentation that is concerning for appendicitis often includes history taking and exam, supplemented by labs. The Alvarado Score is a 10 point rating scale that is widely used as a tool to help decide whether or not a patient presenting with abdominal pain requires CT imaging (although it’s overall clinical usefulness is controversial). It is outlined here by MDCalc. According to the rule, a score of greater than 4 warrants CT evaluation and greater than 7 requires immediate surgical consult. CT scan is a highly sensitive and specific tool in diagnosing appendicitis, however it comes with radiation, cost, and sometimes IV contrast risks. In the pediatric patient population radiation from CT scans are not as desirable as the long-term consequences have theoretical potential to be deleterious (long discussion…for another post maybe!). . . .

And the final example I’m including is Student Corner: Peritonsillar Abscess:

Peritonsillar abscess (PTA) is one of the most common head and neck infections that is diagnosed in the emergency department. The common presenting symptoms are a muffled/altered voice, throat pain, fever and odynophagia. A non-contrast CT image of a particularly severe example of a PTA is shown below. . . .

The posts I’ve reviewed so far are brief and to the point. The blog is definitely worth checking out.

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