October 21, 2021

Journal Club - Physician Depression and Suicide

October 21, 2021/ Casey MacVane, MD, MPH

Suicide is disturbingly prevalent among patients we care for in the Emergency Department. It is unfortunately also common among physicians. Most estimates suggest that approximately 400 physicians die by suicide annually. Physicians also have a higher rate of suicide than the general population. Male physicians have a 40% increased risk of suicide compared to their age-matched peers and female physicians have a 130% increased risk. We chose this topic for Journal Club with the goals to raise awareness around these shocking statistics, discuss etiologies behind these high rates of suicide and to normalize the discussion around physician mental health.

March 30, 2018

Feature Film - Could There Be Light At The End Of The Behavioral Health Tunnel?

March 30, 2018/ Jeffrey A. Holmes, MD

Tomorrow, countless acute mental health patients will present to their local emergency department asking for help. Our typical response? Detain them for days until definitive resources are available. Ironic for a specialty whose defining characteristic is timely diagnosis and treatment. Door to balloon time for STEMI? t-PA for stroke within the window? Most emergency departments have complex operations, funding and resources to meet these goals. How about a door to psychiatric bed time? Not so much. Sadly, the behavioral health care crisis in this country is only getting worse. While the demands on emergency providers to treat these patients continues to rise, resources continue to decline. In this feature film, Dr. Kivela, current ACEP president, proposes some novel solutions to improve the care, cost and boarding times for this vulnerable population.

April 13, 2017

ACEP clinical policy - Critical Issues in the Diagnosis and Management of the Adult Psychiatric Patient in the Emergency Department

April 13, 2017/ Brooks Motley, MD

As the emergency department has increasingly become more crowded with acute psychiatric emergencies, we thought it was timely to review the ACEP clinical policy for emergency department psychiatric patients. It is hot off the press from January 2017 and updates the 2006 policy on the utility of routine labs, head imaging for new psychosis, risk-assessment tools for suicide, and use of ketamine for agitation.