EM Basic Essential Evidence- PECARN Head CT Rule

10/29/12 • -1 min

This episode reviews the article that most people call the PECARN head CT rule or the Kupperman head CT rule (named for the first author). This is an easy to use clinical decision rule that can help us reduce the number of head CTs that we do on children with minor head injury. We owe it to our patients to spare them excess radiation, cost, and time in the ED and this rules helps us do this. In order to use this rule effectively, you need to read this article and understand how the study was done. This allows us to understand the strengths and weaknesses of this rule and helps us apply it in our everyday practice.

Previous Episode

Psychiatric Medical Screening

In this episode, we will discuss how to perform medical screening for patients with psychiatric complaints. While most of these workups are routine, we have to be able to catch the small percentage of patients who have a medical cause to their psychiatric complaint. Don't think it can't happen to you- it almost happened to me twice during residency! We'll discuss how to stay safe while evaluating psychiatric patients, how to get the entire history, how to do appropriate testing, catch the red flags, and make the appropriate disposition.

In the bonus section, a community ED doctor wrote me to tell me his thoughts on testicular pain and why we may not need an ultrasound on every patient. As you'll hear, the answer is far from settled and not without controversy.

Next Episode

Eye Complaints

EM Basic is back and ready for the new year. We see various eye complaints a lot in the ED. This episode will review common eye complaints, their treatments, and a bonus section on how to do a lateral canthotomy.