We have a lot on the go for this month’s meeting, first and foremost a friend of mine who has solid grasp on understanding statistics and medical research has agreed to provide a tutorial at the next meeting. Diana Tasikas is a nursing student at Ryerson University who, prior to pursuing her RN, participated in a great deal of field research and has had scientific papers published in peer reviewed journals. She has offered to explain a lot of the statistical tests and analyses used in medical research papers and provide a real–world explanation of how this research is conducted and presented. So if you’re like me and have a hard time wrapping your head around a lot of the statistical stuff in research papers, this will be a valuable meeting for you to attend.
Second, for this month’s meeting we will be looking at the pre–hospital assessment, management and triage of STEMI patients. There has been a great deal of emphasis placed on the early recognition of STEMIs over the last year or so and the role that Paramedics play in how these patients are treated is likely to evolve a great deal in the near future. In this meeting, we look at a cross section of the research available on the topic focusing on three specific perspectives:
We will also have a brief review of the pathophysiology of acute MIs and an overview of the treatments currently available including fibrinolysis, percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG).
Rather than assign specific questions to each of the three articles, I would suggest that while you are evaluating the material you guide yourself with these thoughts: where are we currently in terms of managing acute MIs and is this strategy effective? And finally, what do you see as the next evolutionary step for Paramedics managing these patients?
Once again, if you know of anyone else who may be interested in attending meetings or receiving the monthly articles, including college students or other health care professionals, please feel free to pass on my e–mails to them or have them contact me directly.
As always, thank you for your ongoing interest and participation and I look forward to seeing you on the 23rd!
Meetings are held on a monthly basis with updated times and locations always available on this page.
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