The Skeptics Guide to Emergency Medicine

Reference: Ye et al. Preoxygenation strategies before intubation in patients with acute hypoxic respiratory failure: a network meta-analysis. Frontiers in Medicine. 2025 Feb Date: June 12, 2025 Guest Skeptic:  Dr. Aine Yore is an Emergency Physician, practicing in the Seattle, Washington area for over twenty years. She is the former president of the Washington chapter […] The post SGEM#477:...

Date: June 2, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Andrew (Andy) Tagg is an Emergency Physician with a special interest in education and lifelong learning. He is the co-founder and website lead of Don’t Forget the Bubbles. This is another SGEM Xtra that talks about what we can learn about being physicians from certain pop culture (TV […] The post SGEM Xtra: Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It –...

Date: May 14, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Ross Prager is an Intensivist at the London Health Sciences Centre and an adjunct professor at Western University. His expertise in critical care medicine is complemented by his research interests in critical care ultrasound and evidence-based knowledge translation. This is an SGEM Xtra episode. The inspiration was a […] The post SGEM Xtra: Ten Lessons T...

Reference:  St Peter, et al. Appendicectomy versus antibiotics for acute uncomplicated appendicitis in children: an open-label, international, multicentre, randomized noni-inferiority trial. The Lancet. Jan 2025 Date: March 19, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Camille Wu is a paediatric surgeon based at Sydney Children’s Hospital where she is the Head of Department. She is also on the […] The post SG...

Reference: Cohen et al; SUSPECT study group. Can we avoid casting for suspected scaphoid fractures? A multicenter randomized controlled trial. J Orthop Traumatol. 2025 Date: May 1, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Matt Schmitz is an orthopedic surgeon specializing in Adolescent Sports Medicine and Young Adult Hip Preservation. He practices at the Rady Children’s Hospital in […] The post SGEM#475: Bre...

Date: May 6, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Actor, producer and director Noah Wyle. Many of us know him as Dr. John Carter from ER, the show that arguably influenced an entire generation of EM physicians. Since that groundbreaking show, he has been busy with multiple movie roles (Pirates of Silicon Valley, Donnie Darko, White Oleander, Shot, and […] The post SGEM Xtra: Doctor, Doctor – Paging Dr. Robby...

Reference: Umana E, et al. Performance of clinical decision aids for the care of young febrile infants: A multicenter prospective cohort study. eClinicalMedicine Lancet December 2024 Date: March 6, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Demetris Athanasiou is a paediatric registrar based in London and enrolled in the PEM MSc program through Queen Mary University in London. Case: […] The post SGEM#474: Help...

Reference: Muldowney et al. A Comparison of Ketamine to Midazolam for the Management of Acute Behavioral Disturbance in the Out-of-Hospital Setting. Ann Emerg Med. 2025  Date: April 24, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Howie Mell received his Medical Doctorate (MD) from the University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Medicine at Rockford. Prior to that, he […] The post SGEM#473: Did You Ever Have T...

Reference: Kareemi et al Artificial intelligence-based clinical decision support in the emergency department: a scoping review. AEM April 2025. Date: April 15, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Kirsty Challen is a Consultant in Emergency Medicine at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals. Case: It may be April, but as you sit in your departmental meeting with your emergency physician colleagues, you all […] Th...

Reference: Sax DR, et al. Emergency Severity Index Version 4 and Triage of Pediatric Emergency Department Patients. JAMA Pediatrics, October 2024 Date: February 12, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Brandon Ho is a graduating pediatric emergency medicine fellow at Children’s National Hospital in Washington DC and soon to be attending physician at Seattle Children’s. His research […] The post SGE...

Date: April 1, 2025 This is another SGEM Xtra. I was asked to give a public lecture for the Gateway Centre of Excellence in Rural Health. The topic was the zombie idea that emergency department crowding is due to non-urgent patients. You can click on this LINK and get a PDF copy of my slides. The […] The post SGEM Xtra Zombie Idea: ED Crowding is Due to Non-Urgent Patients first appeared on...

Date: March 23, 2025 I was honoured to be invited to speak at Incrementum 2025 in Mercia, Spain. Thank you to Paco, Carmen, and the Incrementum team for putting on one of the best conferences ever. They asked me to talk about five important recent papers in 15 minutes. Usually, I do ten papers in […] The post SGEM Xtra: 5 Papers in 15 Minutes (Incrementum 2025) first appeared on The Skeptics...

Date: February 22, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Nicholas Peoples, who is a medical student at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Nick’s career has been an exciting blend of global health and emergency medicine. In 2015, Nick was part of the first-ever class to study at Duke University’s new campus in China, where he earned […] The post SGEM Xtra: On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams – Citatio...

Reference: Pessano S, et al. Positioning for lumbar puncture in newborn infants. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. December 2023 Date: February 7, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Lauren Rosenfeld is a PGY-3 emergency medicine resident at George Washington University. She is also a new podcast host for Emergency Medicine Residents’ Association (EMRA) Cast Series. Case: A five-day-old […] The post SGEM #470...

Reference: Bannelier et al. Failure rate of D-dimer testing in patients with high clinical probability of pulmonary embolism: Ancillary analysis of three European studies. AEM Feb 2025 Date: February 27, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Lauren Westafer an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School – Baystate. She is […] The post SGEM#...

Reference: Agnello et al. Monocyte distribution width (MDW) as a screening tool for early detecting sepsis: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine 2022; 60(5):786-792 Clin Chem Lab Med. 2022 Date: February 21, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Aaron Skolnik is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Mayo Clinic Alix School […] The post SGEM#468: W...

Date: February 11, 2025 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Ross Prager is an Intensivist at the London Health Sciences Centre and an adjunct professor at Western University. His expertise in critical care medicine is complemented by his research interests in critical care ultrasound and evidence-based knowledge translation. This is another SGEM Xtra. On today’s episode, we’re diving […] The post SGEM Xtra:...

Reference: Leonard JC et al. PECARN prediction rule for cervical spine imaging of children presenting to the emergency department with blunt trauma: a multicentre prospective observational study. Lancet Child Adolesc Health. June 2024. Date: Oct 15, 2024 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Tabitha Cheng is a Southern California native and board-certified emergency medicine physician and completed an […] The...

Date: January 9, 2025 Reference: White et al. Evidence of questionable research practices in clinical prediction models. BMC Med 2023 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Jestin Carlson is the Program Director for the AHN-Saint Vincent EM Residency in Erie Pennsylvania.  He is the former National Director of Clinical Education for US Acute Care Solutions and an American […] The post SGEM#466: I Love ROC-n-Rol...

Date: January 7, 2025 Guest Skeptics: Dr. Dara Kass is an emergency medicine physician, public health leader, and advocate passionate about equity and healthcare reform. She founded FemInEM, promoting gender equity in emergency medicine, and champions organ donation reform after donating part of her liver to her youngest son. Dr. Kass is dedicated to expanding […] The post SGEM Xtra: This is...

Date: December 2o, 2024 Reference: Kotani et al. Positive single-center randomized trials and subsequent multicenter randomized trials in critically ill patients: a systematic review. Crit Care. 2023  Guest Skeptic: Dr. Scott Weingart is an ED Intensivist from New York. He did fellowships in Trauma, Surgical Critical Care, and ECMO. He is a physician coach concentrating […] The post SGEM#465...

Date: December 6, 2024 Guest Skeptic: Akil Dasan is a multifaceted artist renowned for his talents as a rapper, singer, guitarist, and beatboxer. He gained prominence as a member of the British jazz-rap group Us3, contributing to their 2006 album “Schizophonic“. This is an SGEM Xtra. We have done a top ten list before on the […] The post SGEM Xtra: Think, About It – Ten Commandme...

Date: December 26, 2024 Reference: Steinhauser S et al. Emergency department staff compassion is associated with lower fear of enacted stigma among patients with opioid use disorder. AEM December 2024 Guest Skeptic: Dr. Suchismita Datta. She is an Assistant Professor and Director of Research in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the NYU Grossman Long Island Hospital Campus. […] The post...

Date: December 15, 2024 Guest Skeptics: Dr. Chris Carpenter, Vice Chair of Emergency Medicine at Mayo Clinic. Today, we’re sleighing through the holiday season with a special episode filled with statistical cheer, a dash of skepticism, and a hint of eggnog-flavoured nerdiness. This is an SGEM Xtra like the one we did on What I […] The post SGEM Xtra: The 12 Days of Christmas the SGEM Gave to...

Reference: Sanchez-Pinto, L.N., et al. Development and Validation of the Phoenix Criteria for Pediatric Sepsis and Septic Shock. JAMA 2024​​. Guest Skeptic: Prof. Damian Roland is a Consultant at the University of Leicester NHS Trust and Honorary Professor for the University of Leicester’s SAPPHIRE group. He specializes in Paediatric Emergency Medicine and is a passionate […] The post SGEM #...