Episodes

Reference: Sax DR, et al. Emergency Severity Index Version 4 and Triage of Pediatric Emergency Department Patients. JAMA Pediatrics, October 2024 Date: February 12, 2025 Dr. Brandon Ho Guest Skeptic: Dr. Brandon Ho is a graduating pediatric emergency medicine fellow at Children’s National Hospital in Washington DC and soon to be attending physician at Seattle Children's. His research interests include AI in healthcare, medical education, and social determinants of health. Case: You are approache...

Date: April 1, 2025 This is another SGEM Xtra. I was asked to give a public lecture for the Gateway Centre of Excellence in Rural Health. The topic was the zombie idea that emergency department crowding is due to non-urgent patients. You can click on this LINK and get a PDF copy of my slides. The YouTube video of the presentation with the Q&A session featuring rural physician Dr. Kay Dingwell is available at this LINK. I also created a song to summarize some of the important parts of this issue ...

Date: March 23, 2025 I was honoured to be invited to speak at Incrementum 2025 in Mercia, Spain. Thank you to Paco, Carmen, and the Incrementum team for putting on one of the best conferences ever. They asked me to talk about five important recent papers in 15 minutes. Usually, I do ten papers in ten minutes. However, This was an international audience, with many of the close to 600 attendees having English as their second language. Therefore, I slowed down and covered five papers in 15 minutes....

Date: February 22, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Nicholas Peoples, who is a medical student at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Nick’s career has been an exciting blend of global health and emergency medicine. In 2015, Nick was part of the first-ever class to study at Duke University’s new campus in China, where he earned a master’s degree in global health. He went on to spend a couple of years working for medical NGOs in Nepal and Malawi before deciding he wanted to become an emergency medic...

Reference: Pessano S, et al. Positioning for lumbar puncture in newborn infants. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. December 2023 Date: February 7, 2025 Dr. Lauren Rosenfeld Guest Skeptic: Dr. Lauren Rosenfeld is a PGY-3 emergency medicine resident at George Washington University. She is also a new podcast host for Emergency Medicine Residents’ Association (EMRA) Cast Series. Case: A five-day-old girl is brought to the emergency department (ED) for fever by her parents. She was born full-term and seeme...

Reference: Bannelier et al. Failure rate of D-dimer testing in patients with high clinical probability of pulmonary embolism: Ancillary analysis of three European studies. AEM Feb 2025 Date: February 27, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Lauren Westafer an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School – Baystate. She is the cofounder of FOAMcast and a pulmonary embolism and implementation science researcher. Dr. Westafer serves as the Social ...

Reference: Agnello et al. Monocyte distribution width (MDW) as a screening tool for early detecting sepsis: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine 2022; 60(5):786-792 Clin Chem Lab Med. 2022 Date: February 21, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Aaron Skolnik is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine and Vice Chair of Critical Care Medicine at Mayo Clinic Arizona. He is board-certified in Emergency Medicine, Medical ...

Date: February 11, 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 another SGEM Xtra. On today’s episode, we’re diving into a fascinating and evolving topic—how artificial intelligence (AI) shapes clinical research. AI has the potent...

Reference: Leonard JC et al. PECARN prediction rule for cervical spine imaging of children presenting to the emergency department with blunt trauma: a multicentre prospective observational study. Lancet Child Adolesc Health. June 2024. Date: Oct 15, 2024 Dr. Tabitha Cheng Guest Skeptic: Dr. Tabitha Cheng is a Southern California native and board-certified emergency medicine physician and completed an EMS fellowship as well. The learning didn’t end because she then completed another fellowship in...

Date: January 9, 2025 Reference: White et al. Evidence of questionable research practices in clinical prediction models. BMC Med 2023 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Jestin Carlson is the Program Director for the AHN-Saint Vincent EM Residency in Erie Pennsylvania. He is the former National Director of Clinical Education for US Acute Care Solutions and an American Red Cross Scientific Advisory Council member. Dr. Richard Bukata We have had the pleasure of both working for the Legend of EM, Dr. Richard Bukata...

Date: January 7, 2025 Dr. Dara Kass Guest Skeptics: Dr. Dara Kass is an emergency medicine physician, public health leader, and advocate passionate about equity and healthcare reform. She founded FemInEM, promoting gender equity in emergency medicine, and champions organ donation reform after donating part of her liver to her youngest son. Dr. Kass is dedicated to expanding reproductive healthcare access and educating the public on healthcare policy. A mother of three, she combines her commitmen...

Date: December 2o, 2024 Reference: Kotani et al. Positive single-center randomized trials and subsequent multicenter randomized trials in critically ill patients: a systematic review. Crit Care. 2023 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Scott Weingart is an ED Intensivist from New York. He did fellowships in Trauma, Surgical Critical Care, and ECMO. He is a physician coach concentrating on the promotion of eudaimonia and optimal performance. Scott is best known for talking to himself about Resuscitation and Criti...

Date: December 6, 2024 Guest Skeptic: Akil Dasan is a multifaceted artist renowned for his talents as a rapper, singer, guitarist, and beatboxer. He gained prominence as a member of the British jazz-rap group Us3, contributing to their 2006 album "Schizophonic". This is an SGEM Xtra. We have done a top ten list before on the SGEM. That episode was the Ten Commandments of EBM. This time we are looking at a 1951 article written by Bertrand Russell and published in The New York Times Magazine. The ...

Date: December 26, 2024 Reference: Steinhauser S et al. Emergency department staff compassion is associated with lower fear of enacted stigma among patients with opioid use disorder. AEM December 2024 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: You and your resident physician have been working hard all day taking care of patients, saving lives, and making...

Date: December 15, 2024 Guest Skeptics: Dr. Chris Carpenter, Vice Chair of Emergency Medicine at Mayo Clinic. Today, we’re sleighing through the holiday season with a special episode filled with statistical cheer, a dash of skepticism, and a hint of eggnog-flavoured nerdiness. This is an SGEM Xtra like the one we did on What I Learned from Top Gun. It’s fun to mix it up and not do a structured critical appraisal of a recent publication and have a more philosophical chat. The inspiration for the ...

Reference: Sanchez-Pinto, L.N., et al. Development and Validation of the Phoenix Criteria for Pediatric Sepsis and Septic Shock. JAMA 2024​​. Guest Skeptic: Prof. Damian Roland is a Consultant at the University of Leicester NHS Trust and Honorary Professor for the University of Leicester’s SAPPHIRE group. He specializes in Paediatric Emergency Medicine and is a passionate believer and advocate of FOAMed. Damian is also part of the Don’t Forget the Bubbles Team. Dr. Damian Roland Case: A 3-year-o...

Date: November 7, 2024 Guest Skeptics: Shirley Ngo is a Digital Product Director at RBC. She has extensive experience working with top financial organizations such as General Electric, Citibank, and CIBC in both Canada and Singapore. Additionally, she is co-host and producer of the "Make It Shine Money” podcast, which offers a unique perspective that blends financial expertise and creative vision. This is an SGEM Xtra. We have previously discussed physician mental health and burnout on the SGEM....

Date: November 10, 2024 Reference: Couper et al. The Paramedic 3 Trial: A randomized clinical trial of drug route in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. October 31, 2024 NEJM Access to the SGEM Podcast episode at this LINK. Guest Skeptic: Missy Carter is a PA currently practicing in critical care after having attended the University of Washington's MEDEX program. An alumnus of Tacoma Community College's paramedic program Missy served as a paramedic for the Bremerton Fire Department for nearly 12 yea...

Date: November 13, 2024 Reference: Lee WH, et al. Study of Pediatric Appendicitis Scores and Management Strategies: A Prospective Observational Feasibility Study. Academic Emergency Medicine. Dec 2024 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Dennis Ren is a pediatric emergency medicine physician at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC. He’s also the host of SGEMPeds. Case: A 10-year-old boy presents to the community emergency department (ED) with abdominal pain. It started last night but the pain seemed to ...

Date: October 28, 2024 Reference: Verma et al. Clinical evaluation of a machine learning–based early warning system for patient deterioration. CMAJ September 2024 Guest Skeptic: Michael Page is currently the Director of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Commercialization at Unity Health Toronto. He leads an AI team intending to improve patient outcomes and healthcare system efficiency. Michael is a sessional lecturer within the Ivey Business School’s Executive MBA program, where he teaches a Technolo...

Date: October 28, 2024 Reference: Woelfle T et al. Benchmarking Human–AI collaboration for common evidence appraisal tools. J Clin Epi Sept 2024. Guest Skeptic: Dr. Laura Walker is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and the vice chair for digital emergency medicine at the Mayo Clinic. In addition to finding ways to use technology in emergency department (ED) care, she is interested in how health systems work and how patients move through the healthcare system. Previously, she has been ...

Date: October 29, 2024 Reference: Galili et al. Low dose ketamine as an adjunct to morphine: a randomized controlled trial among patients with and without current opioid use. AEM Oct 2024. Guest Skeptic: Dr. Neil Dasgupta is an emergency medicine physician and ED intensivist from Long Island, NY. He is the Vice Chair of the Emergency Department and Program Director of the EM residency program at Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow, NY, the safety net hospital for Nassau County. Case:...

Date: October 7, 2024 Reference: Nguyen et al. Comparison of Nebulized Ketamine to Intravenous Subdissociative Dose Ketamine for Treating Acute Painful Conditions in the Emergency Department: A Prospective, Randomized, Double-Blind, Double-Dummy Controlled Trial. Annals of EM 2024. Guest Skeptic: Dr. Brendan Freeman is an emergency medicine physician, assistant professor of emergency medicine, and medical education fellow at Staten Island University Hospital. He completed his residency training ...

Reference: Ma K et al. A national survey of children’s experiences and needs when attending Canadian pediatric emergency departments. PLoS One. June 2024 Date: Oct 1, 2024 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Andrew (Andy) Tagg is an Emergency Physician with a special interest in education and lifelong learning. He is the co-founder of website lead of Don’t Forget the Bubbles (DFTB). Dr. Andrew Tagg Case: You are working with a medical trainee on her first clinical rotation through the emergency department (ED). ...