The EM Literature

As I’m sure we all do, I read journals. While the textbook may be dead, journals are still going strong (even if they have problems) and there is more research than ever being produced.

It is impossible to read it all. Stop trying. However we need to read at least some of it and hopefully the most important bits. We also need to be able to critique a paper and highlight its strengths and weaknesses.

These are some resources I use commonly:

  1. Emergency Medical Abstracts: Absolutely fantastic. Pricy unless you’re an EMRA member but worth it. They have some videos online for free. 
  2. EM Literature of Note: Ryan Radecki’s sterling little blog that covers a lot of the important stuff being published
  3. R&R in the fast lane. A real FOAM enterprise and you’ll discover all kinds of papers you wouldn’t otherwise.
  4. RCEM Learning Podcast. Alight, to be fair I do this one so I’m a bit biased.
  5. Annals of EM: Ryan Radecki from EM Lit of Note and Rory Spiegel (AKA EMNerd)
  6. First 10 EM/BroomeDocs: Casey Parker and Justin Morgenstern have a great little thing going on this
  7. Critical Care Reviews: very much ICU focussed but an incredible resource by Rob MacSweeney in Belfast
  8. The Resus Room: by Simon Laing, a nice little monthly paper review

I read and review a reasonable number myself and they’re all filed here on the site under “critical appraisal.”

Some useful resources on how to read a paper can be found in FRCEM Critical Appraisal section. This is heavily exam focussed but still holds true.

Back in 2011 I cut my teeth on critical appraisal reviewing all the RCTs of lysis for stroke. You can read the somewhat epic stream of consciousness here.

I’ve read and commented on a bunch of other papers all the the category “critical appraisal

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