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Primary Survey

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

BAYESIAN DIAGNOSIS OF PULMONARY EMBOLISM
Bayes theorem provides a mathematical way of integrating new diagnostic information to allow us to appropriately alter our estimates of the probability of disease. It sounds complicated, but it’s what we all do when we examine and investigate patients to build up a diagnosis. However, whereas humans are prone to errors in this process, computers do it with remorseless logic. Luciani and colleagues used data from the PIAS-PED study to develop BayPED, an evidence-based expert system focussed upon diagnosis of pulmonary embolism, and have shown that it offers a flexible and accurate method of diagnosis.
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CLINICIANS DO WHAT THEY CAN
Ball and colleagues report their comparison of the management of injuries by doctors, emergency nurse practitioners and physiotherapy practitioners. Junior doctors were more likely to prescribe analgesia, nurses were more likely to apply bandages and physiotherapy practitioners were more likely to refer patients for physiotherapy. This sounds like practitioner-based practice, rather than . . . [Full text of this article]

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Should exercise treadmill testing be provided in the emergency department?

J Arnold and S Goodacre
Emerg. Med. J. 2007 24: 151. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]