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Emergency Departments, through no fault of their own, are becoming holding cells for patients who are both vulnerable and often marginalized.
As a nurse practitioner in a busy suburban emergency department, pain is my job. Pain is one of the most common reasons people come to an emergency department (ED). It could be abdominal pain, chest…
The purpose and the policies of an emergency department need to be redefined. We’re not emergency workers. We are public health providers.
An unnamed columnist writing for the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action blog advised physicians and other healthcare providers to “stay in their lane” when it comes to advocating for gun control. This appears…
San Pedro Sula in Honduras was the murder capital of the world for decades, a title it lost only a few years ago to Caracas, Venezuela in 2016. At its peak, there were an average…
While there has been a great deal in the literature that discusses the ethics of neurologic, cardiopulmonary and biologic death in the context of organ donation, there has been very little attention to this application…
The patient was a very pleasant 45-year-old woman who came into the emergency department with fever, headache and neck pain; all signs and symptoms concerning for meningitis or possibly encephalitis. Both are often an infectious,…
By Stephen Wood Medication Replacement Therapy (MRT), Medication Assisted Therapy (MAT). Opioid Substitution Treatment (OST). Opioid Replacement Therapy (ORT). Opioid Agonist Therapy (OAT). This confusing array of acronyms are all terms that have made their way…
There were approximately 64,000 deaths from opioid overdose in 2016, including deaths from both prescription and illicit drugs. The incidence of opioid overdose has continued to escalate despite a number of efforts. Increasing treatment beds,…
There were 240 million opioid prescriptions in the U.S. in 2016, a number that accounts for about 30 percent of the world’s opioid prescriptions, and is enough for one opioid prescription for every adult…
