Emergency department airway management before and after an emergency medicine residency

To determine whether the start of an Emergency Medicine (EM) training progr am affects the appropriateness, timeliness, and:safety of Emergency Departm ent (ED) intubations, all ED intubations performed 12 months before and aft er the start of an EM residency were reviewed. In addition, all patients in tubated within 12 h after being admitted through the ED were reviewed, We f ound that all ED intubations before and after the start of a residency prog ram were deemed appropriate, Of patients intubated after admission, 13 of 2 0 (65%) were felt to have warranted intubation while in the ED for the pre- residency group, compared with 9 of 29 patients (31%) for the post-residenc y group. There were no differences between the complication rates of these groups. We conclude that an EM residency program did not increase the numbe r of inappropriate intubations or complications, and reduced the number of patients who required but did not receive intubation in the ED. (C) 1999 El sevier Science Inc.