Dear member, we are delighted to announce the nominated candidates for the position of EUSEM Vice President. To vote, read the candidate's statements.

Prof. Ashraf Butt

Prof. Said Laribi

Note that elections will run from 25 June to 25 July.

Next Election Deadlines

25 June - Open elections

25 July - Elections closing date

Please note that only full members can elect and vote. 

All full members of EUSEM are invited to vote for the vice president. Please go to your my EUSEM account to vote.

Vote Now

The EUSEM Syncope Group have published a consensus statement in the European Journal of Emergency Medicine on the general process of the workup and care for patients with suspected syncope, providing rules for sufficient and systematic management of the broad group of syncope (initially presenting as TLOC) patients in the ED. A variety of European diagnostic and therapeutic standards for syncope patients were reviewed and summarized in three rounds of a modified Delphi process by the European Society for Emergency Medicine Syncope Group. Based on a consensus statement, a detailed process pathway was created. The primary outcome of this work is the presentation of a universal process pathway for the structured management of syncope patients in European EDs. The presented extended event process chain (eEPC) summarizes and homogenizes the process management of European ED syncope patients. Additionally, an exemplary translation of the eEPC into a practice-based flowchart algorithm, which can be used as an example for practical use in the ED, is provided in this work. Syncope patients, initially presenting with TLOC, are common and pose challenges in the ED. Despite variations in process management across Europe, the development of a universally applicable syncope eEPC in the ED was successfully achieved. Key features of the consensus and eEPC include ruling out life-threatening causes, distinguishing syncope from nonsyncopal TLOCs, employing syncope risk stratification categories and based on this, making informed decisions regarding admission or discharge.

Click here to read the full statement here.

 The European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS) has approved  new training requirements for clinicians working in emergency medicine (EM). The European Training  Requirement (ETR) is, essentially, the curriculum for physicians dealing with all health emergencies in adult and paediatric patients. The ETR is intended  to strengthen training in EM across the board, and defines the skills and capabilities needed to work as a specialist in EM.

 The document was unanimously approved by all of the National Medical Associations at the UEMS council in April along with approval from the UEMS specialist Sections and Boards.  This is particularly important as it ensures the approval and support of all specialties for the scope of practice of emergency medicine and the role EM plays in healthcare in Europe. The document defines clearly the key working relationships with other specialties and emphasises the need to work as collaborators and partners with colleagues to provide the best care for patients. The document includes descriptions of the professional skills required, including those of educator, scholar, communicator, collaborator and leader.

 The document was written by a group comprised of members of the UEMS Section and Board for Emergency Medicine, the EUSEM education committee and the young Emergency Medicine doctors. This group worked for 18 months on updating and refreshing the existing ETR and is delighted to have achieved unanimous approval for it.

 The ETR is clearly vital to the care of all patients, but is particularly important in relation to caring for emergencies in children, where a recent survey has shown significant gaps in child health training across Europe. The ETR now states explicitly that at least 20% of the five- year minimum training in EM should be spent in dealing with paediatric emergencies. It is hoped that by standardising the training required, reduce  variation in the care provided to children in emergency departments will be reduced,  as well as inequalities in healthcare.

 “This ETR publication is timely and coincides with a paper in  the European Journal of Emergency Medicine* that reports the results of a survey of all member countries of EUSEM to determine current training in paediatric emergency medicine. Results from the survey showed that while the total time spent in emergency medicine training in European countries was generally adequate, paediatric EM training took up a very small proportion of that time – from one to 11 months. The new ETR should lead to an improvement in this ratio in the future,” says Dr Ruth Brown, from the Department of Emergency Medicine, St Mary’s Hospital, President of the UEMS emergency medicine section, and a co-author of the paper.

 It is important that trainees work with paediatric specialists to improve their skills and competencies, says the paper’s first author, Dr Ruud G. Nijman, from the Department of Paediatric Emergency Medicine, St Mary’s Hospital. London, UK. “More work needs to be done to improve the confidence and competence of clinicians in dealing with acutely injured and unwell children, and the new version of the training requirements are an important step forward in that respect.”

 “We welcome the new training requirements as they underline the worth of not just the specialism of paediatric emergency medicine, but emergency medicine as a whole,” said EUSEM President, Dr Jim Connolly.

The new UEMS requirements can be found here

Also read the full article on "Providing urgent and emergency care to children and young people: training requirements for emergency medicine specialty trainees" in EJEM.

Welcome to the quarterly EJEM research round-up, where we present our top picks from the last three months of EJEM editions.

Chiara Lazzeri, Associate Editor

Verdonschot et al [1]performed a retrospective two-centre study to investigate the number of in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA) and out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) patients eligible to Extracorporeal Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (ECPR). Clinical characteristics that may help to identify which patients benefit the most from ECPR were also detected. The study population comprised all IHCA and OHCA patients screened for eCPR between 1 January 2017 and 1 January 2020 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The features of this investigation are the large population included and the organizational characteristics of the Netherlands. This country, small and densly populated, is characterized by a short travel time to the hospital and the existence of is a nationwide response system exists that alerts trained citizens when an OHCA occurs in their neighbourhood. That is probably why in Netherlands the use of Automated External Defibrillator (AED) (29-65%) is higher than in other countries....

From the journal Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (CCLM).

ABSTRACT

Blood Sampling Guidelines have been developed to target European emergency medicine-related professionals involved in the blood sampling process (e.g. physicians, nurses, phlebotomists working in the ED), as well as laboratory physicians and other related professionals. The guidelines population focus on adult patients. The development of these blood sampling guidelines for the ED setting is based on the collaboration of three European scientific societies that have a role to play in the preanalytical phase process: EuSEN, EFLM, and EUSEM. The elaboration of the questions was done using the PICO procedure, literature search and appraisal was based on the GRADE methodology. The final recommendations were reviewed by an international multidisciplinary external review group. Continue reading

This study was conducted in a joint collaboration between EuSEN, EFLM, and EUSEM.