EM Conference by Justin Yee (1.12.21)

This past Tuesday, I had the pleasure of attending UCLA RRMC’s Emergency Medicine Conference, a weekly meeting where attendings, residents, medical students, and other visiting members present a talk about some salient or niche aspect of Emergency Medicine. Now, as an EMRA, I believe some of our greatest privileges are being able to do direct volunteer work in Ronald Reagan’s ED, shadow doctor, and attend these EM Conferences. The reason being is that for the former two, we get to directly experience how emergency medicine is practiced by residents and attendings, as well as see interesting cases that show up in the ED every once in a while. The reason the EM Conference ranks among those top privileges, to me, is because through the EM Conference, we get to experience how doctors continue to learn and review important medical knowledge that they may have forgotten. It is quite impressive and inspiring to get a glimpse at how physicians stay up to date on current best medical practices given the rapidly changing nature of the medical field. Additionally, during these conferences, the senior residents are also able to present their own lectures/talks on topics they are personally passionate about, which is always extremely interesting to listen in on as well.

This week, the three talks that stood out to me were “Tox: Sleepy Time”, “Disaster Medicine”, and “Tropical Medicine: Trypanosomiasis”. Tox (short for toxicology): Sleepy Time was a talk about the different medications and drugs that are classified as sedative hypnotics. Oftentimes, patients who have overdosed on these drugs or have fallen victim to these drugs (as they can commonly be used as date-rape drugs) are presented to the ED and knowing how to identify and treat the effects of each drug is important knowledge. The senior talk on Disaster Medicine, given by Dr. Humphryes, certainly was an extremely applicable topic as SoCal hospitals fight hard to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic that is surging particularly hard this season. In this talk, I additionally learned that UCLA Olive-View hospital once had to activate a Code Triage during the Northridge earthquake a couple of decades ago that even destroyed the building! My favorite talk was on Trypanosomiasis, commonly known as Chagas’ disease which is caused by the parasite T. cruzi being transmitted into your bloodstream when bitten (and simultaneously defecated upon!) by the triatomine bug. When this disease is not treated in the acute 1–2 week phase, symptoms may persist for life with little treatment options. What’s so interesting about these tropical diseases, is the little press/research attention that they get despite their status as an emerging and common disease. Even more disturbing is the northward migration of triatomine bugs as the climate changes, allowing the bugs to inhabit more land area.

Overall, it’s always a great time attending the UCLA EM Conferences and the discussions and talks are such a blast to listen to. I’m very thankful for these opportunities provided by EMRA and the ED. Catch you all at the next conference!