Partiality,impartiality and the ethics of triage

In this paper, I discuss the question of partiality and impartiality in the application of triage. Triage is a process in medical research which recommends that patients should be sorted for treatment according to the degree or severity of their injury. In employing the triage protocol, however, the question of partiality arises because socially vulnerable groups will be neglected since there is the likelihood that the social determinants of a patient's health may diminish her chance of survival. As a process that is based on the severity of a patient's injury, triage will be unfair, and hence negatively partial, to socially vulnerable people. Thus, I aim in this paper to show that the triage protocol fails as an impartial evaluative process because its only aim is to maximize survivability. I contend that: (i) triage would lead to the neglect of the social condition of patients or victims, and (ii) it will only serve the utilitarian purpose of maximization of outcomes which may not be justified in some cases.     

The effect of a charted history of depression on emergency department triage and outcomes in patients with acute myocardial infarction

Background

Patients with acute myocardial infarction may have worse outcomes if they also have a history of depression. The early management of acute myocardial infarction is known to influence outcomes, and patients with a coexisting history of depression may be treated differently in the emergency department than those without one. Our goal was to determine whether having a charted history of depression was associated with a lower-priority emergency department triage score and worse performance on quality-of-care indices.

Methods

We conducted a retrospective population-based cohort analysis involving patients with acute myocardial infarction admitted to 96 acute care hospitals in the province of Ontario from April 2004 to March 2005. We calculated the adjusted odds of low-priority triage (Canadian Emergency Department Triage and Acuity Scale score of 3, 4 or 5) for patients with acute myocardial infarction who had a charted history of depression. We compared these odds with those for patients having a charted history of asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Secondary outcome measures were the odds of meeting benchmark door-to-electrocardiogram, door-to-needle and door-to-balloon times.

Results

Of 6784 patients with acute myocardial infarction, 680 (10.0%) had a past medical history of depression documented in their chart. Of these patients, 39.1% (95% confidence interval [CI] 35.3%–42.9%) were assigned a low-priority triage score, as compared with 32.7% (95% CI 31.5%–33.9%) of those without a charted history of depression. The adjusted odds of receiving a low-priority triage score with a charted history of depression were 1.26 (p = 0.01) versus 0.88 (p = 0.23) with asthma and 1.12 (p = 0.24) with COPD. For patients with a charted history of depression, the median door-to-electrocardiogram time was 20.0 minutes (v. 17.0 min for the rest of the cohort), median door-to-needle time was 53.0 (v. 37.0) minutes, and median door-to-balloon time was 251.0 (v. 110.0) minutes. The adjusted odds of missing the benchmark time with a charted history of depression were 1.39 (p < 0.001) for door-to-electrocardiogram time, 1.62 (p = 0.047) for door-to-needle time and 9.12 (p = 0.019) for door-to-balloon time.

Interpretation

Patients with acute myocardial infarction who had a charted history of depression were more likely to receive a low-priority emergency department triage score than those with other comorbidities and to have worse associated performance on quality indicators in acute myocardial infarction care.In the United States, more than six million patients with conditions related to mental health are seen each year in the nation’s emergency departments.¹ Some of these comprise the six million patients with chest pain who are also seen annually in the emergency department.² Several studies have suggested that patients with acute myocardial infarction fare worse if they also suffer from depression.^3–5 The cause for less favourable outcomes is thought to be multifactorial and to include poor adherence to treatment.⁵ To our knowledge, quality of care in emergency departments has not been examined as a possible contributor. It has been suggested that patients with mental illness receive a lower-priority triage score than other patients in emergency departments because of the stigma of the disease.^6,7Virtually all patients who present to an emergency department are initially assessed by a trained triage nurse. The nurse assigns them a triage score based on their illness acuity, prioritizing them for subsequent emergency care. In Ontario, all emergency departments are mandated to use the five-level Canadian Emergency Department Triage and Acuity Scale.⁸ This uniformity provides an opportunity to study the effect of triage at the population level. In the United States, various triage tools are used.⁹Previously, we established that the emergency department triage scores assigned to patients who are ultimately found to be having an acute myocardial infarction are independently associated with delays in diagnostic testing and reperfusion.¹⁰ In this study, we examined the emergency department care of patients with acute myocardial infarction who had a medical history of depression noted in their emergency department chart. We aimed to determine whether these patients were assigned lower-priority triage scores than other patients with acute myocardial infarction and whether there was an association between a charted history of depression and performance on established quality-of-care indices.¹¹     

Integrated medical resource consumption stratification in hospitalized patients: an Auto Triage Management model based on accurate risk,cost and length of stay prediction

Triage management plays important roles in hospitalized patients for disease severity stratification and medical burden analysis. Although progression risks have been extensively researched for numbers of diseases, other crucial indicators that reflect patients’ economic and time costs have not been systematically studied. To address the problems, we developed an automatic deep learning based Auto Triage Management (ATM) Framework capable of accurately modelling patients’ disease progression risk and health economic evaluation. Based on them, we can first discover the relationship between disease progression and medical system cost, find potential features that can more precisely aid patient triage in resource allocation, and allow treatment plan searching that has cured patients. Applying ATM in COVID-19, we built a joint model to predict patients’ risk, the total length of stay (LoS) and cost when at-admission, and remaining LoS and cost at a given hospitalized time point, with C-index 0.930 and 0.869 for risk prediction, mean absolute error (MAE) of 5.61 and 5.90 days for total LoS prediction in internal and external validation data.

     

急诊昏迷患者的迅速分诊与急救方法探讨

目的:探讨急诊昏迷患者的迅速分诊与急救方法。方法:参照5级急诊预检分诊系统和急诊危重病降阶梯治疗方法,对我院2012年1月至2014年12月120例急诊治疗昏迷患者进行规范化分诊、急救护理,回顾性分析其诊疗效果。结果:120例昏迷患者有90例(75.00%)治愈出院,17例(14.17%)因病情平稳转至相关科室进行治疗,13例(10.83%)病死,急诊治疗总有效率和病死率分别为89.17%和10.83%。结论:分诊和急救处置的规范化对患者治愈和预后有重要影响。     

First Nations status and emergency department triage scores in Alberta: a retrospective cohort study

Background:Previous studies have found that race is associated with emergency department triage scores, raising concerns about potential health care inequity. As part of a project on quality of care for First Nations people in Alberta, we sought to understand the relation between First Nations status and triage scores.Methods:We conducted a population-based retrospective cohort study of health administrative data from April 2012 to March 2017 to evaluate acuity of triage scores, categorized as a binary outcome of higher or lower acuity score. We developed multivariable multilevel logistic mixed-effects regression models using the levels of emergency department visit, patient (for patients with multiple visits) and facility. We further evaluated the triage of visits related to 5 disease categories and 5 specific diagnoses to better compare triage outcomes of First Nations and non–First Nations patients.Results:First Nations status was associated with lower odds of receiving higher acuity triage scores (odds ratio [OR] 0.93, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.92–0.94) compared with non–First Nations patients in adjusted models. First Nations patients had lower odds of acute triage for all 5 disease categories and for 3 of 5 diagnoses, including long bone fractures (OR 0.82, 95% CI 0.76–0.88), acute upper respiratory infection (OR 0.90, 95% CI 0.84–0.98) and anxiety disorder (OR 0.67, 95% CI 0.60–0.74).Interpretation:First Nations status was associated with lower odds of higher acuity triage scores across a number of conditions and diagnoses. This may reflect systemic racism, stereotyping and potentially other factors that affected triage assessments.

Health outcomes are markedly worse for First Nations than non–First Nations people. Although this is largely because of inequities in the social determinants of health,^1–4 inequities in the provision of health care also exist.^5,6 Emergency departments serve as a point of accessible health care. Status First Nations patients make up 4.8% of unique patients and 9.4% of emergency visits in Alberta,⁷ and Canadian studies describe First Nations patients’ experiences with racism when seeking emergency care.^8,9Evaluating triage contributes empirically to understanding the health care of First Nations patients insofar as triage is a quantifiable, intermediate process by which systemic racism¹⁰ may influence patient outcomes. The Canadian Triage Acuity Scale¹¹ is a 5-level scale used to classify the severity of patient symptoms. Triage nurses use a brief assessment, medical history, and presenting signs and symptoms to assign each patient a triage score that determines the priority in which the patient should be seen by a provider. Therefore, accurate triage is important for patient health outcomes.¹² In practice, triage is a social interaction where local practice, biases, stereotypes and communication barriers come into play. Studies have found that women receive less acute triage scores than men,^13,14 and that racial minority^13,15–17 and Indigenous^18–20 patients receive less acute triage scores than white or non-Indigenous patients. Indeed, Indigenous patients in Canada have described a perception “of social triaging in the [emergency department], whereby decisions about who is seen first seemed to them [to be] based less on triaged clinical priorities but on the social positioning of the patient.”²¹ Differential triage scores for minority populations raise health equity concerns.As part of a larger mixed-methods project evaluating the quality of emergency care for First Nations people in Alberta, we sought to evaluate quantitative differences in emergency visit characteristics and outcomes of First Nations and non–First Nations people in Alberta. Specifically, we aimed to estimate the relation between First Nations status and acuity of triage, and to evaluate whether predictors of acuity differ by First Nations status.     

Evaluation of nurse triage in a British accident and emergency department.

OBJECTIVE--To compare formal nurse triage with an informal prioritisation process for waiting times and patient satisfaction. SETTING--Accident and emergency department of a district general hospital in the midlands in 1990. DESIGN--Patients attending between 8:00 am and 9:00 pm over six weeks were grouped for analysis according to whether triage was operating at time of presentation and by their degree of urgency as assessed retrospectively by an accident and emergency consultant. PATIENTS--5954 patients presenting over six weeks. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--Time waited between first attendance in the department and obtaining medical attention, and patient satisfaction measured by questionnaire. RESULTS--Complete data on waiting time were collected on 5037 patients (85%). Only 1213 of the 2515 (48%) patients presenting during the triage period were seen by a triage nurse. Patients in the triage group waited longer than those in the no triage group in all four retrospective priority categories, though differences were significant for only the two most urgent categories (difference in median waiting time 10.5 (95% confidence interval 3.5 to 14) min for category 1 and 8.5 (3 to 12) min for category 2). Responses to the patient satisfaction questionnaire were similar in the two groups except for the question relating to anxiety relating to pain. CONCLUSIONS--This study fails to show the benefits claimed for formal nurse triage. Nurse triage may impose additional delay for patient treatment, particularly among patients needing the most urgent attention.     

Evaluating chest pain in the emergency department.

Chest pain is one of the most difficult diagnostic problems for physicians working in an emergency department. In this setting, more malpractice dollars are awarded for missed myocardial infarction than for any other physician error. This problem usually occurs when the patient has atypical symptoms, the physician is inexperienced, or the diagnosis is not considered. The clinical manifestations of myocardial infarction vary greatly, and patients with "atypical" presentations have a poorer prognosis than those with classic symptoms. Although no feature of a patient''s history excludes infarction with certainty, pain that is sharp, positional, pleuritic, or reproduced by palpation indicates a lower probability of acute ischemic heart disease. New immunochemical methods and serial sampling strategies have increased the sensitivity of creatine kinase-MB as an indicator for the disorder. Recent investigations have also established the prognostic value of the initial electrocardiogram. These methods allow emergency physicians to assess the risk of complications and to perform triage when there is a shortage of beds in the coronary care unit. Emergency physicians must also consider other diseases for which coronary care might be beneficial.     

"Sweeping up after the parade": professional, ethical, and patient care implications of "turfing"

"Turfing" denotes a patient transfer or triage from one physician to another when the care of that patient feels more troublesome than it is worth. A widespread phenomenon in medical training programs, turfing appears to allocate patient care to meet physicians' rather than patients' needs. Although turfing reportedly causes inter-physician discord and inter-specialty stereotyping, its deeper consequences are poorly understood. Turfing is an interpersonal conflict masquerading as a medical issue. After examining turfing alongside other patient-related slang, I analyze the distinction between "the turf," a person, and "to turf," a practice. Several explanatory models from medical practice are explored in order to illuminate turfing's implications for medical professionalism, ethics, and patient care. I suggest that a physician's medical specialty or practice type--that is, professional culture--may link to that physician's degree of altruism. If so, then what it means fundamentally to be a physician might vary across medical specialties. Such a link calls for a new notion of cultural competence, one that physicians may apply not to patients but to each other.     

Lymphoabdominal paracoccidioidomycosis simulating primary neoplasia of the biliary tract

The lymphoabdominal involvement in the sub-acute form of paracoccidioidomycosis shows a wide variety of clinical manifestations, ranging from fever and lymph node enlargement to infiltration of all abdominal organs, which can lead to a situation of abdominal surgical emergency. This case report presents paracoccidioidomycosis mimicking carcinoma of the biliary tract, The purpose of this paper is to call the general physician’s attention for this important differential diagnosis of abdominal masses. Although paracoccidioidomycosis is rarely encountered in the United States and Europe, it should be considered in patients who are suspected of having a fungal infection and have had previous exposure in an endemic area for this disease.*Fábio Luis Silva do Prado and Renata Prado contributed equally to this work.     

Lower body negative pressure as a model to study progression to acute hemorrhagic shock in humans.

Hemorrhage is a leading cause of death in both civilian and battlefield trauma. Survival rates increase when victims requiring immediate intervention are correctly identified in a mass-casualty situation, but methods of prioritizing casualties based on current triage algorithms are severely limited. Development of effective procedures to predict the magnitude of hemorrhage and the likelihood for progression to hemorrhagic shock must necessarily be based on carefully controlled human experimentation, but controlled study of severe hemorrhage in humans is not possible. It may be possible to simulate hemorrhage, as many of the physiological compensations to acute hemorrhage can be mimicked in the laboratory by applying negative pressure to the lower extremities. Lower body negative pressure (LBNP) sequesters blood from the thorax into dependent regions of the pelvis and legs, effectively decreasing central blood volume in a similar fashion as acute hemorrhage. In this review, we compare physiological responses to hemorrhage and LBNP with particular emphasis on cardiovascular compensations that both share in common. Through evaluation of animal and human data, we present evidence that supports the hypothesis that LBNP, and resulting volume sequestration, is an effective technique to study physiological responses and mechanisms associated with acute hemorrhage in humans. Such experiments could lead to clinical algorithms that identify bleeding victims who will likely progress to hemorrhagic shock and require lifesaving intervention(s).     

Wait times in the emergency department for patients with mental illness

Background:

It has been suggested that patients with mental illness wait longer for care than other patients in the emergency department. We determined wait times for patients with and without mental health diagnoses during crowded and noncrowded periods in the emergency department.

Methods:

We conducted a population-based retrospective cohort analysis of adults seen in 155 emergency departments in Ontario between April 2007 and March 2009. We compared wait times and triage scores for patients with mental illness to those for all other patients who presented to the emergency department during the study period.

Results:

The patients with mental illness (n = 51 381) received higher priority triage scores than other patients, regardless of crowding. The time to assessment by a physician was longer overall for patients with mental illness than for other patients (median 82, interquartile range [IQR] 41–147 min v. median 75 [IQR 36–140] min; p < 0.001). The median time from the decision to admit the patient to hospital to ward transfer was markedly shorter for patients with mental illness than for other patients (median 74 [IQR 15–215] min v. median 152 [IQR 45–605] min; p < 0.001). After adjustment for other variables, patients with mental illness waited 10 minutes longer to see a physician compared with other patients during noncrowded periods (95% confidence interval [CI] 8 to 11), but they waited significantly less time than other patients as crowding increased (mild crowding: −14 [95% CI −12 to −15] min; moderate crowding: −38 [95% CI −35 to −42] min; severe crowding: −48 [95% CI −39 to −56] min; p < 0.001).

Interpretation:

Patients with mental illness were triaged appropriately in Ontario’s emergency departments. These patients waited less time than other patients to see a physician under crowded conditions and only slightly longer under noncrowded conditions.In a 2008 report, the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario recommended adding a psychiatric wait times component to the Ontario government’s Emergency Room Wait Times Strategy.¹ They suggested that patients who present to the emergency department in psychiatric distress wait longer for care than other patients and that they are given a low priority triage score² (all patients are assigned a triage score when they first arrive at the emergency department, which may determine when and where they are seen by a physician).³ The Kirby Report, a senate report on mental illness and addiction in Canada, also decried differential emergency care for patients with mental illness.⁴A recent study found that patients with acute myocardial infarction are given lower priority care in the emergency department if they have a charted history of depression.⁵ However, whether patients who present to the emergency department for mental illness receive slower care than other patients is not known. In this study, we compared the emergency department wait times and triage scores for patients with affective and psychotic disorders to those for other patients, both in noncrowded conditions and during periods of crowding. Because we believe that triage nurses apply triage principles consistently to all emergency patients while physicians may be less likely to adhere to the guidelines, we hypothesized that there would be no “down-triage” (assigning a lower priority triage score) of these patients, but that patients with mental illness would have longer delays to see a physician, relative to other patients.     

Triage: a working solution to overcrowding in the emergency department

Recently, emergency departments across the continent have become crowded with patients requiring non-urgent care. To alleviate this situation at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, receptionists in the emergency department direct patients requiring urgent care to the emergency room and those requiring non-urgent care to a screening clinic (triage). During a two-month period, 13,551 patients visited the emergency department. The triage receptionist sent 8368 patients to the emergency room and 5183 to the screening clinic. About 45% of patients visiting the emergency room had suffered accidents and injuries, and 19% had respiratory illness; 15% of patient visits resulted in admission to hospital. In contrast to this, 49% of patients sent to the screening clinic had respiratory illness and 18% had infective disease; less than 1% of patients needed hospitalization.     

Categorization of Hospital Emergency Services—Developing Valid Criteria

In a pilot project sponsored by the California State Emergency Medical Services Authority, validated, verifiable criteria were developed for the vertical categorization of hospital emergency services in 11 different groupings of medical and surgical emergencies. We describe the development of an assessment process and categorization criteria to identify the most appropriate receiving facility for interfacility transfer and, in selected instances, field triage of patients with different levels of severity of illness or injury. We propose that this facility assessment project be used in the critical care planning process for the eventual vertical categorization of hospital emergency services in California and as a template for similar projects in other states.     

HPV triage of women with atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance: a 3-year experience in an Italian organized programme

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of our study was to determine if Hybrid Capture II assay (HCII) on Liquid Based Cytology (LCB) improves the accuracy (higher sensitivity, similar specificity) than the repeat conventional Pap smear in smears with Atypical Squamous Cell (ASC) of Undetermined Significance diagnosis. METHODS: HPV testing was used to manage women, especially the older ones, with cervical abnormalities detected through our triennial organized screening in order to avoid unnecessary colposcopy and excessive follow-up if the woman is HPV negative. The HPV DNA Triage was offered without any charge to 909 women with ASC. The Bethesda System was used for the classification of these equivocal cytological findings and more precisely the 1991 version (ASCUS) until the summer 2001 (315 cases) and the new one 2001 classification (ASC-US and ASC-H) after this date (594 cases). The presence or absence of a cervical intraepithelial neoplasia of grade I or worse [CIN1+], and of grade II or worse [CIN2+], was confirmed by biopsy. RESULTS: The HPV DNA Triage showed a good accuracy (specificity over 94%, sensitivity of 37% and PPV for CIN2+ lesions around 30%). The higher values of ASC-H lesions (.462) for the sensitivity for CIN 2+ probably signify that this lesion is already a SIL. CONCLUSIONS: Our data were comparable with those recently published on the meta-analysis by Arbyn et al., confirming the promising approach of our guidelines for the treatment of these patients even in terms of Health Technology Assessment (HTA).     

血栓弹力图指导支架内血栓后不稳定心绞痛治疗1 例及文献复习

目的:探讨在血栓弹力图监测血小板抑制率的情况下,调整氯吡格雷及阿司匹林用量,治疗冠心病、PCI术后支架内再发血栓患者的临床意义。方法:报告中国人民解放军总医院1例支架内亚急性血栓患者的临床资料并复习相关文献,对其临床表现、诊断、在血栓弹力图指导下的治疗进行分析。结果:1例支架内亚急性血栓患者经治疗病情好转出院,出院后继续调整氯吡格雷及阿司匹林用量,达到满意血小板抑制率,患者症状消失。结论:冠状动脉介入治疗后发生支架内血栓的患者,应用血栓弹力图指导氯吡格雷及阿司匹林用量,可达到令人满意的血小板抑制率,并防止出血情况发生。     

Terrorism, trauma, and mass casualty triage: how might we solve the latest mind-body problem?

The global war on terrorism has led to increased concern about the ability of the U.S. healthcare system to respond to casualties from a chemical, biological, or radiological agent attack. Relatively little attention, however, has focused on the potential, in the immediate aftermath of such an attack, for large numbers of casualties presenting to triage points with acute health anxiety and idiopathic physical symptoms. This sort of "mass idiopathic illness" is not a certain outcome of chemical, biological, or radiological attack. However, in the event that this phenomenon occurs, it could result in surges in demand for medical evaluations that may disrupt triage systems and endanger lives. Conversely, if continuous primary care is not available for such patients after initial triage, many may suffer with unrecognized physical and emotional injuries and illness. This report is the result of an expert planning initiative seeking to facilitate triage protocols that will address the possibility of mass idiopathic illness and bolster healthcare system surge capacity. The report reviews key triage assumptions and gaps in knowledge and offers a four-stage triage model for further discussion and research. Optimal triage approaches offer flexibility and should be based on empirical studies, critical incident modeling, lessons from simulation exercises, and case studies. In addition to staging, the proposed triage and longitudinal care model relies on early recognition of symptoms, development of a registry, and use of non-physician care management to facilitate later longitudinal followup and collaboration between primary care and psychiatry for the significant minority of patients who develop persistent idiopathic symptoms associated with reduced functional status.     

RESPECT FOR PERSONS PERMITS PRIORITIZING TREATMENT FOR HIV/AIDS

I defend a certain claim about rationing in the context of HIV/AIDS, namely, the 'priority thesis' that the state of a developing country with a high rate of HIV should provide highly active anti-retroviral treatment (HAART) to those who would die without it, even if doing so would require not treating most other life-threatening diseases. More specifically, I defend the priority thesis in a negative way, by refuting two influential and important arguments against it inspired by the Kantian principle of respect for persons. The 'equality argument' more or less maintains that prioritizing treatment for HIV/AIDS would objectionably treat those who suffer from it as more important than those who do not. The 'responsibility argument' says, roughly, that to ration life-saving treatment by prioritizing those with HIV would wrongly fail to hold people responsible for their actions, since most people infected with HIV could have avoided the foreseeable harm of infection. While it appears that a Kantian must think that one of these two arguments is sound, I maintain that, in fact, respect for persons grounds neither the equality nor responsibility argument against prioritizing HAART and hence at least permits doing so. If this negative defence of the priority thesis succeeds, then conceptual space is opened up for the possibility that respect for persons requires prioritizing HAART, which argument I sketch in the conclusion as something to articulate and defend in future work.     

Comparative Evaluation of Stroke Triage Algorithms for Emergency Medical Dispatchers (MeDS): Prospective Cohort Study Protocol

Background  

Stroke is a major cause of death and leading cause of disability in the United States. To maximize a stroke patient's chances of receiving thrombolytic treatment for acute ischemic stroke, it is important to improve prehospital recognition of stroke. However, it is known from published reports that emergency medical dispatchers (EMDs) using Card 28 of the Medical Priority Dispatch System protocols recognize stroke poorly. Therefore, to improve EMD's recognition of stroke, the National Association of Emergency Medical Dispatchers recently designed a new diagnostic stroke tool (Cincinnati Stroke Scale -CSS) to be used with Card 28. The objective of this study is to determine whether the addition of CSS improves diagnostic accuracy of stroke triage.     

Pain genetics: past, present and future

Chronic pain is a classic example of gene × environment interaction: inflammatory and/or nerve injuries are known or suspected to be the etiology of most chronic pain syndromes, but only a small minority of those subjected to such injuries actually develop chronic pain. Once chronic pain has developed, pain severity and analgesic response are also highly variable among individuals. Although animal genetics studies have been ongoing for over two decades, only recently have comprehensive human twin studies and large-scale association studies been performed. Here, I review recent and accelerating progress in, and continuing challenges to, the identification of genes contributing to such variability. Success in this endeavor will hopefully lead to both better management of pain using currently available therapies and the development and/or prioritizing of new ones.     

Educating Internists in Emergency Medicine

The education of internists in emergency medicine needs to be thoughtfully planned by those involved in their education. Objectives for their emergency medicine rotation include the recognition and initial treatment of true medical and surgical emergencies, clinical experience with and knowledge of common acute primary care problems, the ability to handle several patients with problems having different degrees of urgency, effective use of consultants in the follow-up and management of difficult patients and a knowledge of and clinical experience with the prehospital care system. A curriculum should be designed to give the resident a core of didactic material in addition to supervised clinical experience. The rotation should be evaluated by both residents and faculty from internal medicine and emergency medicine to determine if it is accomplishing the objectives set forth.