What is an open fracture? How to we manage them? What antibiotics should you give and when?

Do you feel like you pour your heart, soul, blood, sweat, and tears into your fracture/reductions and still come up short? Does the orthopedics consultant always want to "re-do" your attempt? Here is a repost of a podcast interview between former Cooper EM resident Patrick Sheehan, former Cooper Orthopedics Resident Joseph Legatol on how to get a perfect reduction. Inside the interview are 5 tips on positioning yourself for success. Also included is a video of Dr. Sheehan giving an example of "exaggerating the injury" of a distal radius fracture for a more successful reduction. 

Independently interpreting plain film imaging is an essential skill for the Emergency Medicine provider. Among the most notorious of injuries likely to be missed is the Maisonneuve fracture. In this post we demonstrate the "can't miss" imaging findings to ensure that you don't make the mistake of thinking this is "just an ankle sprain!"

Acute compartment syndrome is a surgical emergency.  Measurements of compartment pressures are an important adjunct to making the diagnosis. Check out this post for a video demonstration on how to operate the Stryker Device

Your patient presents with shoulder pain.  The x-ray appears normal and you suspect a rotator cuff injury.  Here are some pearls....

Review the basics on the can't miss diagnosis of compartment syndrome in 2 minutes.  

Using basic terminology, you should be able to describe any fracture to your consults without embarrassing yourself.  Here is your 3 minute review.

Snow day for the Cooper EM Residents! Instead of today's conference pearls we finish out our trauma/orthopedic module from January with a high yield summary of clinically useful hand pearls from our awesome new hand surgeon Dr. Nicole Jarrett's lecture!

Do you sound like a first year medical student when discussing hand injuries by phone with consultants? Forget all the tendon anatomy you crammed for in anatomy? FDP? FDS? FPL? Then check out this post for a "Back to Basics" online hand exam lecture by Dr. Fred Heckler from UPMC.