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The Use and Need for Standard Precautions and Transmission-Based Precautions in the Emergency Department
Protecting ourselves, colleagues, and patients from infection is paramount to delivering safe care. Implementing policies and practices in the emergency department that support current infection control methods to reduce or prevent the transmission of infecting agents is our professional responsibility. This article seeks to provide a review of standard precautions and transmission-based precautions along with a few common examples of patient presentations to the emergency department.Urgent Care of Neck Breathers
As an infectious diseases specialist for over 40 years, I also had extensive experience in emergency care. After being diagnosed with throat cancer 4 years ago, I had undergone laryngectomy, thus becoming a neck breather. I no longer breathe through my nose or mouth but through a stoma in my neck. Unfortunately, neck breathers are at a higher risk of receiving inadequate therapy when seeking urgent medical care.1,2 I experienced this myself when I needed such care because of shortness of breath at one of the local emergency departments.“Stand Clear!” Tracing the Practice and Principles of Human Revival
In essence, people often stumble across discoveries of scientific significance during a caprice of Mother Nature, aided by our extraordinary drive forward in the quest for immortality. The moral fiber of human intuition impels us to preserve hopes and dreams by passing on the baton of knowledge gathered in our lifetime and by joining pieces of a jigsaw, assembling the means to continue our existence.Poison Control in the Emergency Department
There were 61 participating poison control centers in 2007 for the American Association of Poison Control Centers 2007 Annual Report of the National Poison Data System, with 2,482,041 human exposures reported. The health care setting calls to poison control throughout the United States accounted for over 15% of total call volume.1 Many of these calls were generated from the nation's emergency departments.The Crystal Chalice: Investigating the Source of Fiberoptic Science
Devices using the technology of fiberoptics, from the direct visual laryngoscope to the flexible endoscope, all share a common light source; nevertheless, throughout their daily use in clinical areas, to even consider excluding the knowledge of focused illumination would be unimaginable. Endoscopes for medical examinations were widely manufactured in Tuttlingen, Germany, by Karl Storz in the 1940s1; however, the more agile digital equipment together with a variety of synthetic materials only appeared within the past 20 years following the birth of fiberoptics—the vanguard in the dawn of robotic surgery.Triage, Diagnose, Treatment, and Disposition (‘2 TDs’)
When I am asked to talk about what the emergency department does, I say it is “2 TDs.” Breaking down complex concepts into an acronym occurs throughout science and health care (think E = mc2 or ABC). The other piece of explaining the emergency department in this manner is to relate it to popular terms, such as football terms; I believe “2 TDs (touchdowns)” works best. The 2 TDs are triage, diagnose, treatment, and disposition.
