How i chose emergency medicine

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the healthcare system facilitated a change in policies to redress the consequences of increased demand and fear of disease transmission. Restrictive measures throughout the healthcare system limiting access to accompanying partners of birthing people in addition to fears of contracting COVID-19, an increasing number of birthing people chose to have an out-of-hospital birth. Out-of-hospital births are not prevalent in the United States...

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the health care system, resulting in decreased health care utilization. During the pandemic, some patients chose to postpone clinic visits or avoid them altogether while health care providers concurrently scaled back their services. As a result, health care has shifted to a greater reliance on telehealth and virtual care. This study uses a qualitative descriptive design, focused on providing summaries of participant experiences of health care and telehealth utilization during the COVID-19 pandemic...

BACKGROUND: Physician Order for Life-Sustaining Treatment forms (POLST) exist in some format in all 50 states. The objective of this study is to determine paramedic interpretation and application of the California POLST for medical intervention and transportation decisions. METHODS: This study used a prospective, convenience sample of California Bay Area paramedics who reviewed six fictional scenarios of patients and accompanying mock POLST forms. Based on the clinical case and POLST, paramedics identified medical interventions that were appropriate (i...

OBJECTIVES: Many medical students feel inadequately prepared to address end-of-life issues, including patient death. This study aimed to examine medical students' first experiences of the deaths of patients in their care. METHODS: Final-year medical students at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, University of Western Ontario were invited to share their first experience of the death of a patient in their care. The students could choose to participate through telephone interviews, focus groups or e-mail...

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To evaluate parent preferences for the therapy of young children with fever without source. PARTICIPANTS: Consecutive parents, not in a medical profession, of children less than 36 months old. SETTING: Pediatric clinic of a university teaching hospital. DESIGN: During individual interviews at the time of their child's clinic visit, parents were presented with a case scenario and two treatment options and the risks, outcomes, and cost associated with each...