Without evidence of benefit, an intervention should not be presumed to be beneficial or safe.

- Rogue Medic

Some Excellent New Medical-Research Sites

 

Where are the best new places to get emergency medical research?

First, an older place, which gathers a lot of research together.
 


 

Life in the Fast Lane has its Research Review (the most recent is #104), which provides links to what people are writing about emergency medicine and critical care research as well as great writing by their own authors.
 

 
But what about the newer sites?
 


Image credit.
 

The Lit Whisperers
 

The new blog of Brandon Oto to go along with The EMSB Digital Research Library by Brandon with Vince DiGiulio as the Head Librarian and Master of Evidence-Based Codices. .
 

 

 

Skeptical Medicine
 

Dr. John Byrne tries to explain about the medical mistakes we make in being too cynical or too gullible, rather than appropriately skeptical of claims made by researchers, or those who do not even care if their treatments work.
 

Where do we fall on this spectrum?

Too many of us seem to be fond of the idea of using what some fan of physiology claims works, even though this approach frequently does not even work as well as placebo. We need less of that textbook gullibility that is regularly disproved by research.
 

** It is logically contradictory – and therefore forbidden – to embrace science and logic when they support an idea, but then to reject them when they do not.

 

 

 

Mill Hill Ave Command
 

Dr. Brooks Walsh examines recent research with a lot of visual aids that take what could be dense material and makes it very educational and fun. There is otherwise a shortage of paramedic/medical directors out there writing about research.
 

 

 

EMS Patient Perspective

Bob Sullivan writes about the way our treatments affect patients, for good and for bad.
 

 
Then some of the older sites –
 


 

Street Watch: Notes of a Paramedic
 

Peter Canning writes about what works in patient care from the street level and from the administrator level in one of the first EMS blogs.
 

 


 

A Day in the Life of an Ambulance Driver
 

Perhaps the most hated blog name in EMS, because We’re too good to be called ambulance drivers. Those critics may not even deserve to be called taxi drivers.

Kelly Grayson writes about all aspects of EMS, but he has a series with Gene Gandy that looks at the EMS mythology that just does not seem to go away, such as the recent More Oxygen Can’t Hurt…Can It?
 

 

 

EMS 12 Lead
 

Tom Bouthillet, Christopher Watford, and David Baumrind write about all things electrical in the heart.
 

 

 

 

SMART EM

Dr. David Newman, and sometimes Dr. Ashley Shreves, write and podcast about research and emergency medicine. There is an excellent deconstruction of the ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support) guidelines and the lack of evidence for the drugs recommended in the guidelines.

The NNT is another excellent site that is here, too.
 

 

 

EM Crit
 

Dr. Scott Weingart podcasting on bringing ICU medicine to the ED, so why shouldn’t we continue that by taking ED medicine to the street?
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Emergency Medicine Literature of Note
 

Dr. Ryan Radecki writes a couple of paragraphs that get to the heart of recent research – the important points, including the flaws. His criticism of the only partially disclosed biases of the cherry-picked research misrepresented as a comprehensive research review by JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) was posted on his site, rather than trying to get it published in JAMA. It probably received more attention this way. Go read it.

Are blogs the future of peer review, because the journals do not seem to do an adequate job. If they did, I would not have so many badly written papers to criticize.
 

These sites are not examples of gullibility in medicine.
 

I am sure I am missing some important sites, but I am too tired to focus. Going to bed.
 

What sites do you recommend?
 

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Comments

  1. Thanks for the links.

    SMART EM (and the NNT) is so good that it makes me dizzy. The only caveat is that the topics aren’t always directly relevant to EMS (it’s really an ED focus), but even in those there’s often wonderful pearls.

    There are also some good resources here: https://emspep.cdha.nshealth.ca/TOC.aspx and http://emergency.medicine.iu.edu/research/journal-club/

  2. Thanks Rogue! Great company to be associated with.

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