Since acute pain management is protean in nature, the focus of this report consciously will be to avoid such topics as procedural sedation, alternative nonpharmacologic adjuncts, medication pharmacokinetics, sickle cell pain crisis management, cancer pain management, and physician liability in withholding analgesic treatment.
For the emergency physician, sexual assault represents the most common presenting complaint associated with the potential for an unintended pregnancy. Annually, approximately 40,000 people in the United States visit EDs after sexual assault. Pregnancy is estimated to occur in approximately 5% of sexual assaults. Thus, pregnancy prevention is an important part of the care for these patients. For the emergency physician, EC represents the most viable treatment option. However, while highly effective when used properly, it is associated with a number of issues that make it much less commonly used.
This two-part series discusses bacterial skin and soft-tissue infections. Part 1 will discuss bacterial skin infections that quite frequently are encountered in the general practice of medicine and that predominantly are benign in nature. With proper diagnosis and treatment of these entities, no major complication or long-term sequellae should be expected.
