Life in the Fast Lane

Emergency fracture management does not end with recognising and immobilising the injury. Clinicians must also decide whether specialist review is required, where that review should occur and how urgently it should be arranged. These pathways vary considerably between hospitals. Some departments have dedicated fracture clinics. Others rely on community orthopaedics, plastic surgery, sports medicine or primary care.

CT sits at the centre of modern acute care, yet most clinicians who order and act on scans never received computed tomography training. We compared the leading options on breadth, level, CME credits, and price, favouring self-paced courses built for non-radiologists.

Blunt cerebrovascular injury (BCVI) is frequently clinically silent until cerebral ischaemia develops. Screen patients with clinical evidence of vascular injury or an appropriate high-risk injury pattern using CT angiography. Classify confirmed injuries using the Biffl scale and commence antithrombotic therapy as soon as the competing risk of traumatic haemorrhage permits.

Critical Debrief: Episode 4: DEEP DIVE – Clinical Event Debriefing What is clinical event debriefing, how does it differ from the simulation debriefing we all know, and how do you actually make it routine in a busy ED? Emergency clinicians Prof Walter Eppich and A/Prof Andrew Coggins join host Kit Rowe and the team for a deep dive.

Emergency tracheal intubation is a complex, time-critical procedure performed under substantial cognitive load. Physiological instability, difficult anatomy and the need to coordinate several clinicians can make even familiar steps easier to overlook. A checklist does not replace expertise but can support team communication and reduce the risk that critical actions are omitted. This Adult Intubation Checklist is a rapid cognitive aid for clinicians already trained in emergency airway management.

Emergency tracheal intubation in children combines technical, physiological and cognitive challenges. Limited oxygen reserve, high metabolic demand and weight-dependent equipment and medication choices mean that hypoxaemia and haemodynamic deterioration can develop rapidly. Careful preparation and a shared team plan are therefore essential. This Paediatric Intubation Checklist is a rapid cognitive aid for clinicians already trained in paediatric emergency airway management.

ECG criteria for left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) identify an abnormal electrical phenotype associated with increased left ventricular mass; they do not measure ventricular mass directly. Most criteria have high specificity but limited sensitivity: a positive result supports LVH, while a negative ECG does not exclude anatomical hypertrophy.

Artificial intelligence is being used in academic research with a growing collection of specialised tools. Some help researchers find and interrogate papers. Others support the repetitive work of deduplication, screening, data extraction and review management. A tool that generates a rapid answer from academic literature is not necessarily suitable for conducting a systematic review.

AI can explain a difficult concept, generate teaching cases, summarise papers and screen hundreds of abstracts before lunch. It can also invent a reference, flatten uncertainty and produce a polished explanation that is confidently wrong. The important question is not whether clinicians should use AI but rather how to use these tools without confusing fluent language with reliable evidence.

AI is already embedded in cardiology. Algorithms can measure ventricular function, flag abnormal ECGs, segment cardiac CT scans, identify patients at risk of deterioration and generate draft clinical documentation. Producing an answer, however, is not the same as producing a trustworthy one. Before an AI tool enters clinical care, clinicians need to know more than its headline accuracy. Does it work outside the population in which it was developed? Does it fit the local workflow?