Point-of-Care Ultrasound Unveiling Rotator Cuff Injuries in the Emergency Department: A Case Series.

Acute shoulder pain is a common ED presentation with a wide range of pathologies that are often initially investigated with radiography. However, diagnosing rotator cuff injuries often requires further imaging for proper diagnosis and management. Bedside shoulder ultrasound is an application that allows for the evaluation of ligaments and tendons in addition to bony structures, all while utilizing direct patient feedback of focally tender areas, expediting diagnosis and therapeutic intervention. In this case series, we discuss our evaluation of patients with suspected rotator cuff pathology and the practice of using the stepwise shoulder ultrasound protocol. Four cases are presented that illustrate the use of shoulder ultrasound in diagnosing biceps tendon injury, supraspinatus tear, chronic supraspinatus tear with hemarthrosis, and subacromial-subdeltoid bursitis. This narrative highlights the valuable role of shoulder ultrasound for the expedited diagnosis and management of patients whose initial shoulder radiographs do not indicate any bony abnormalities.

Maintaining health professional education during war: A scoping review.

PURPOSE: War negatively impacts health professional education when health care is needed most. The aims of this scoping review are to describe the scope of barriers and targeted interventions to maintaining health professional education during war and summarise the research. METHODS: We conducted a scoping review between 20 June 2018 and 2 August 2018. The search was restricted to English publications including peer-reviewed publications without date ranges involving war and health professional education (medical school, residency training and nursing school), with interventions described to maintain educational activities. Two independent reviewers completed inclusion determinations and data abstraction. Thematic coding was performed using an inductive approach allowing dominant themes to emerge. The frequency of barrier and intervention themes and illustrative quotes were extracted. Articles were divided into modern/postmodern categories to permit temporal and historical analysis of thematic differences. RESULTS: Screening identified 3271 articles, with 56 studies meeting inclusion criteria. Publication dates ranged from 1914-2018 with 17 unique wars involving 17 countries. The studies concerned medical students (61.4%), residents (28.6%) and nursing students (10%). Half involved the modern era and half the postmodern era. Thematic coding identified five categories of barriers and targeted interventions in maintaining health professions education during war: curriculum, personnel, wellness, resources, and oversight, with most involving curriculum and personnel. The distribution of themes among various health professional trainees was similar. The frequency and specifics changed temporally reflecting innovations in medical education and war, with increased focus on oversight and personnel during the modern era and greater emphasis on wellness, curriculum, and resources during the postmodern era. CONCLUSIONS: There are overarching categories of barriers and targeted interventions in maintaining health professional education during war which evolve over time. These may serve as a useful framework to strategically support future research and policy efforts.

Use of a Refresher Course Increases Confidence in Point-of-Care Ultrasound Skills in Emergency Medicine Faculty.

Introduction All practicing emergency medicine (EM) physicians need to maintain a skillset in emergency ultrasound (US) after their initial training. EM physicians in academic practice may be supervising trainees performing ultrasound applications that they aren't comfortable with. This study investigates the effectiveness of a US refresher course. The hypothesis was that a series of short courses would increase confidence in performing and supervising US applications. Methods Nine basic emergency ultrasound applications were taught over the course of one year by ultrasound fellowship-trained EM faculty in a simulation center at a single academic institution. Each session included 30-minutes of didactics/image review and 30-minutes of hands-on practice on normal volunteers and was followed by an anonymous questionnaire evaluating comfort level performing and supervising the ultrasound application before and after the course using a Likert scale from 1 "not at all confident" to 5 "very confident". Results Thirty-six of 60 EM physicians participated in at least 1 of the 9 sessions (median 3, interquartile range 2-4). Faculty who attended had a median of 10 (interquartile range 7-15) years in practice and 61% work at both academic and community sites. For all sessions combined, confidence in performing US increased from a mean score on the Likert scale of 3.3 to 4.4 (difference 1.1, confidence interval (CI) (0.94, 1.29), p < 0.001) and confidence in supervising trainees increased from a mean of 3.4 to 4.5 (difference 1.1, CI (0.88, 1.23), p < 0.001). The largest increases were seen in musculoskeletal (MSK), nerve, and pelvic applications and the least increase was seen with the session focused on intravenous access, but confidence was increased in all sessions. Physicians in practice ≥10 years increased in confidence in performing and supervising the applications by 1.4 (CI (1.11, 1.60), p < 0.001) and 1.3, (CI (1.01, 1.49), p < 0.001), respectively. Physicians in practice <10 years increased 0.8 (CI (0.57, 1.03), p < 0.001) and 0.8 (CI (0.55, 1.05), p < 0.001), respectively. Conclusion An emergency ultrasound refresher course for EM physicians at a single institution improved self-reported confidence in both performing and supervising trainees in all applications reviewed. Those in practice ≥10 years showed the largest increases.

Therapeutic analysis of Intrabeam-based intraoperative radiation therapy in the treatment of unicentric breast cancer lesions utilizing a spherical target volume model.

It is postulated that the outcomes in treating breast cancer with intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT) would be affected by the residual cancer cell distribution within the tumor bed. The three-dimensional (3D) radiation doses of IntrabeamTM (IB) IORT with a 4-cm spherical applicator at the energy of 50 and 40 kV were calculated. The modified linear quadratic model (MLQ) was used to estimate the radiobiological responses of the cancer cells and interspersed normal tissues with various radiosensitivities. By comparing the average survival fraction of normal tissues in IB-IORT and uniform dose treatment for the same level of cancer cell killing, the therapeutic ratios (TRs) were derived. The equivalent uniform dose (EUD) was found to increase with the prescription dose and decrease with the cancer cell infiltrating distance. For 50 kV beam at the 20 Gy prescription dose, the EUDs are 18.03, 16.49 and 13.56, 11. 29, and 9.28 Gy respectively, for 1.5, 3.0, 6.0, 9, and 15.0 mm of the cancer cell infiltrating distance into surrounding tissue. The dose rate of 50 kV is at least 1.87× higher than that of 40 kV beam. The EUDs of 50 kV beam are up to 15% higher than that of the 40 kV beam. The TR increases with the prescription dose, but decreases with the distance of cancer cell infiltration distance. Average TRs of 50 kV beam are up to 30% larger than that of 40 kV beam. In conclusion, IB-IORT can provide a possible therapeutic advantage on sparing more normal tissue compared with the External Beam IORT (EB-IORT) for shallowly populated unicentric breast lesion. Our data suggest that IB-IORT dose size should be adjusted based on the individual patient's cancer cell infiltrating distance for delivering an effective dose, one dose-fits-all regimen may have undertreated some patients with large cancer infiltrating distance.