Episodes

Reference: George S, et al. Effectiveness of nasal high-flow oxygen during apnoea on hypoxaemia and intubation success in paediatric emergency and ICU settings: a randomised, controlled, open-label trial. Lancet Respir Med. March 2025 Date: July 10, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Spyridon Karageorgos is a Pediatric Chief Resident at Aghia Sophia Children’s Hospital, Athens, Greece and faculty of the Pediatric Emergency Medicine MSc at Queen Mary University in London. Case: A two-year-old boy presents i...

Date: September 18, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Neil Dasgupta is an Emergency Medicine (EM) physician and emergency department (ED) intensivist from Long Island, NY. He is the Vice Chair of the ED and Program Director of the EM residency program at Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow, NY. Reference: Doupnik et al. Impact of telemental health on suicide prevention care in U.S. emergency departments. AEM Sept 2025 Trigger Warning: The following case scenario discusses suicide and self-harm...

Date: Sept 16, 2025 Reference: Prada et al. Evaluation of the evidence on acetaminophen use and neurodevelopmental disorders using the Navigation Guide methodology. Environ Health. August 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Andrew Martin is an emergency physician practicing in Jacksonville, Florida. Case: A 27-year-old at 24 weeks’ gestation presents to the emergency department (ED) with fever (38.6 °C), myalgias, and sore throat. She took 650 mg of acetaminophen (Tylenol) six hours ago with partial relief....

Date: August 12, 2025. This is an SGEM Xtra, and today, we’re putting on our conference lanyards and boarding passes to talk about one of the most exciting events in the global EM calendar, IncrEMentuM 2026. For those who did not attend IncrEMentuM 2025, it set the bar incredibly high. From the moment delegates walked into the venue in Murcia, Spain, there was a buzz that felt like the early days of SMACC. The conference felt electric, global, and unapologetically fun. The talks were short, shar...

Date: August 12, 2025 Article: FDA Approved and Ineffective by Jeanne Lenzer and Shannon Brownlee. June 5, 2025. The Lever. Jeanne Lenzer Guest Skeptic: Jeanne Lenzer is a long-time medical investigative journalist and returning SGEM guest. Her previous work, including the book The Danger Within Us, explored how conflicts of interest and weak evidence can endanger patient care. In this new project with The Lever, Jeanne analyzes how the FDA approves drugs that often don’t meet basic efficacy sta...

Reference: Jessen et al. Pharmacological interventions for the acute treatment of hyperkalaemia: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Resuscitation 2025 Date: August 6, 2025 Guest Skeptic: William Toon is a paramedic who, this past May achieved over 50 years of continuous EMS certification. His professional path has taken him from front-line paramedic to national presenter, expert witness, flight medic, EMS program director, and senior training executive with a doctorate in Higher Education. C...

Date: August 11, 2025 Dr. Gillian Schmitz Guest Skeptic: Dr. Gillian Schmitz is a board-certified Emergency Physician practicing at The Naval Medical Center in San Diego. She is also a former President of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP). This SGEM Xtra is inspired by the 1992 film A League of Their Own. Unlike our previous pop culture references like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Trek, Batman, Top Gun, Ted Lasso and Mission: Impossible, this story is based on real events. Th...

Reference: Otterness et al. The Use of TENS for the Treatment of Back Pain in the Emergency Department: A Randomized Controlled Trial. AEM Aug 2025 Date: August 22, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Lauren Westafer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Baystate. She is the co-founder of FOAMcast and a researcher in pulmonary embolism and implementation science. Dr. Westafer serves as the research methodology editor for Annals o...

Reference: Othman AA, et al. Combined ketamine and midazolam vs. midazolam alone for initial treatment of pediatric generalized convulsive status epilepticus (Ket-Mid study): A randomized controlled trial. Pediatric Neurology. June 2025 Date: May 27, 2025 Dr. James Chamberlain Guest Skeptic: Dr. James Chamberlain is a pediatric emergency medicine attending physician at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC where he is the Director of Data Analytics and Informatics for the Division of Em...

Date: July 10, 2025 Guest Skeptics: Professor Timothy Caulfield is a Canadian professor of law at the University of Alberta, the Research Director of its Health Law Institute. His area of expertise is in legal, policy and ethical issues in medical research and its commercialization. This is another SGEM Xtra book review. Tim was our guest skeptic a few years ago, discussing his book called Relax, Dammit! A User’s Guide to the Age of Anxiety. He is back on the SGEM to discuss his latest book call...

Reference: Kemal et al. Emergency department utilization by youth before and after firearm injury. AEM July 2025 Date: July 28, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Kirsty Challen is a Consultant in Emergency Medicine in the UK and an evidence-based medicine advocate. She's a seasoned knowledge translator with her wonderful PaperinaPic infographics. Case: Your non-US emergency department (ED) has recently been shaken by the attendance of a teenager with a gunshot injury. Subsequent investigation has found he...

Reference: Bourke EM, et al. PEAChY-O: Pharmacological Emergency Management of Agitation in Children and Young People: A Randomized Controlled Trial of Oral Medication. Annals of Emergency Medicine. Feb 2025 Date: April 29, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Brad Sobolewski, is a pediatric emergency medicine physician at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati College of Dr. Brad Sobolewski Medicine. He is the creator of the PEMBlog and host of PEM Current...

Date: July 9, 2025 Guest Skeptics: Dr. Cindy Bitter is an Associate Professor in the Division of Emergency Medicine at Saint Louis University. She has a Master’s in Bioethics, and she is passionate about EM capacity building and physician resilience, especially improving wellness through time in nature. Dr. Amy Bi is a graduate from the SSM Health Saint Louis University Emergency Medicine residency and the University of Missouri School of Medicine. She is interested in continuing medical educati...

Reference: Arnold CG, et al. Performance of individual criteria of the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) intraabdominal injury prediction rule. Acad Emerg Med. Jan 2025 Date: May 7, 2025 Dr. Sandi Angus Guest Skeptic : Dr. Sandi Angus is a Paediatric and Adult Emergency Medicine Registrar in the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust. She is passionate about paediatric EM, wellbeing and medical education. Case: A ten-year-old boy presents to your emergency department ...

Reference: Solnick et al. Sex Disparities in Chlamydia and Gonorrhea Treatment in US Adult Emergency Departments: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. AEM June 2025 Date: June 24, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Suchismita Datta. She is an Assistant Professor and Director of Research in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the NYU Grossman Long Island Hospital Campus. Case: A 24-year-old woman presents to the emergency department (ED) with a two-day history of dysuria, lower abdominal discomfort, a...

Reference: Ye et al. Preoxygenation strategies before intubation in patients with acute hypoxic respiratory failure: a network meta-analysis. Frontiers in Medicine. 2025 Feb Date: June 12, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Aine Yore is an Emergency Physician, practicing in the Seattle, Washington area for over twenty years. She is the former president of the Washington chapter of ACEP, and her career focus outside of clinical practice has been largely devoted to health care policy. Case: A 68-year-old wom...

Date: June 2, 2025 Dr. Andrew Tagg Guest Skeptic: Dr. Andrew (Andy) Tagg is an Emergency Physician with a special interest in education and lifelong learning. He is the co-founder and website lead of Don’t Forget the Bubbles. This is another SGEM Xtra that talks about what we can learn about being physicians from certain pop culture (TV and Movies). Past episodes include: Star Trek Made Me A Better Physician Lead Me On – What I Learned from Top Gun Holding Out for a Hero – Lessons from The Dark ...

Date: May 14, 2025 Dr. Ross Prager Guest Skeptic: Dr. Ross Prager is an Intensivist at the London Health Sciences Centre and an adjunct professor at Western University. His expertise in critical care medicine is complemented by his research interests in critical care ultrasound and evidence-based knowledge translation. This is an SGEM Xtra episode. The inspiration was a thread Ross posted on X: Here are 10 lessons they don't teach in medical school (but should) that I've learned the hard way ove...

Reference: St Peter, et al. Appendicectomy versus antibiotics for acute uncomplicated appendicitis in children: an open-label, international, multicentre, randomized noni-inferiority trial. The Lancet. Jan 2025 Date: March 19, 2025 Dr. Camille Wu Guest Skeptic: Dr. Camille Wu is a paediatric surgeon based at Sydney Children’s Hospital where she is the Head of Department. She is also on the Training Committee of Paediatric Surgery for Australia and New Zealand. Case: A 10-year-old boy presents to...

Reference: Cohen et al; SUSPECT study group. Can we avoid casting for suspected scaphoid fractures? A multicenter randomized controlled trial. J Orthop Traumatol. 2025 Date: May 1, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Matt Schmitz is an orthopedic surgeon specializing in Adolescent Sports Medicine and Young Adult Hip Preservation. He practices at the Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego and is Professor of Orthopedics at UC San Diego. Case: A 48-year-old woman presents to the emergency department (ED) with ...

Date: May 6, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Actor, producer and director Noah Wyle. Many of us know him as Dr. John Carter from ER, the show that arguably influenced an entire generation of EM physicians. Since that groundbreaking show, he has been busy with multiple movie roles (Pirates of Silicon Valley, Donnie Darko, White Oleander, Shot, and At the Gate) and TV series (The Librarian, Falling Skies, The Red Line and Leverage: Redemption). Noah is back in scrubs again, playing Dr. Robinavitch in The Pitt...

Reference: Umana E, et al. Performance of clinical decision aids for the care of young febrile infants: A multicenter prospective cohort study. eClinicalMedicine Lancet December 2024 Date: March 6, 2025 Dr. Demetris Athanasiou Guest Skeptic: Dr. Demetris Athanasiou is a paediatric registrar based in London and enrolled in the PEM MSc program through Queen Mary University in London. Case: A 6-week-old boy is brought by his parents to your emergency department (ED) for fever. His older sister has ...

Reference: Muldowney et al. A Comparison of Ketamine to Midazolam for the Management of Acute Behavioral Disturbance in the Out-of-Hospital Setting. Ann Emerg Med. 2025 Date: April 24, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Howie Mell received his Medical Doctorate (MD) from the University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Medicine at Rockford. Prior to that, he received a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree emphasizing Environmental and Occupational Health from the University of Illinois at Chicago, School ...

Reference: Kareemi et al Artificial intelligence-based clinical decision support in the emergency department: a scoping review. AEM April 2025. Date: April 15, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Kirsty Challen is a Consultant in Emergency Medicine at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals. Case: It may be April, but as you sit in your departmental meeting with your emergency physician colleagues, you all note that the winter “surge” of patients hasn’t stopped. The decision fatigue at the end of shifts is as present...