Emergency medicine podcasts, reviews and curbside consults
It’s usually nothing serious, but sometimes it can be a harbinger of sudden death…
ERCAST interviews Ray Moreno, MD about a rational approach to the pediatric patient who presents following a syncopal event. Here are a few of the links mentioned in the episode.
About Rob OrmanDeceptively tall.
Podcaster to the stars, father of many, lover of few
[...] the mighty ER Cast on paediatric [...]
[...] Another podcast on the same topic, but covering it from a third perspective, is the ERCAST. [...]
[...] Most Fair Dinkum Ripper Beaut of the Week! ERCASTThe ripper of week has to go to Rob’s podcast on paediatric syncope. [...]
Hey,
love the show. I’m an Enrolled nurse as well as a student nurse in Sydney Australia.
While at university, I’m also working at the Blood bank here and while we dont have any donors who are children (16 is the youngest most are 30-40yrs), we do have plenty of what we call “vaso vagal” reactions during the donation.
It was great to get a different perspective on this condition.
I found it interesting that someone with cardiomyopathy presents with the same (at least initial) symptoms as someone with a “good old” faint- even though some of these faints can lead to LOC >30sec, seizures & Hypotension <80sys.
Any thoughts?
Anyway, thanks for the podcast, it really helps me get in a good frame of mind before exams or doing case studies.
Hey Matt,
Sorting out the etiology of a syncopal episode can present a real challenge. A vaso-vagal event upon phlebotomy is fairly straight forward, but most syncopal patients will get a workup in the ED consisting of at least an EKG, but usually more. The first step is deciding whether it was seizure or syncope. To your point, there are often convulsive movements following syncope, especially if the patient doesn’t go flat on the ground right away. Presence of a post ictal period is my deciding point. I agree with you that hypotension doesn’t help as hypotension can be part of the picture with any etiology of syncope, no matter how serious the cause.