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  1. Ian K Maconochie, Editor
  1. Correspondence to Ian K Maconochie, Paediatric A&E Department, St Mary's Hospital London, London W2 1NY, UK; i.maconochie{at}imperial.ac.uk

https://doi.org/10.1136/emj.2010.109173

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    Can you be an effective teacher without seeing fewer patients?

    This US based study looks at this at this to see whether or not emergency medicine physicians could teach to ED resident's satisfaction whilst keeping up with the number of patients that they saw. The answers are illuminating and may be the study needs to be repeated in the UK setting—teaching is a fundamental part of patient care, for the patient and others such as clinicians in training (see page 37).

    Elderly falls at home—what makes ambulance staff decide that they can stay at home

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    DVLA

    Do you know when patients can drive or not? FY2 doctor, Dr Akhtar and consultant, Dr Saunders, looked at the knowledge amongst medical staff, nurses and doctors from a wide variety of specialities and show that we may not know as much as we think about the conditions which impede driving. Think about epilepsy, vaso-vagal syncope, stroke, seizures associated with alcohol and pre-eclampsia, look at the results of the study and go to http://www.dft.gov.uk/dvla/medical/ataglance.aspx to confirm your thoughts! (see page 85)

    Recreational drugs

    This pilot study analsysed the substances that were left/given by attendees at a busy inner city ED in the UK, in both liquid and solid forms and found an interesting variety of compounds. This could be of help in profiling the local activity of drug use and could inform the medical and other prevention agencies in knowing what is going on out there! (see page 11)

    Swine flu

    Singapore has a highly advanced healthcare system and previous experience from SARS epidemic so the paper from Tan Tock Seng Hospital is most welcome in seeing how they managed the first 50 days of swine flu. It was set up as a prospective observational study highlighting the importance that is placed in this setting on obtaining accurate and informative data. They compared with H1N1 sufferers with those who had seasonal flu and provide some suggested features that may help to differentiate the two (see page 18).

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