Emergency Clinical Problem Solver ECPS  

Emergencies can arise at any time and in any setting. All physicians must be prepared to make urgent decisions and provide immediate treatment in the office, hospital, or community. This course focuses on developing advanced clinical reasoning, prioritizing critical actions, and adapting in real time to approach and treat emergent cases.

Shared Objectives C3PS and ECPS

After the Clinical Problem Solver Rotation, the trainee will:

1. Demonstrate the ability to identify a critically ill or unstable patient
2. Communicate systems issues such as quality concerns or patient safety events
3. Develop a basic intervention plan for common critical scenarios
4. Demonstrate skillful communication regarding difficult/complex news to patients or families
5. Leverage the expertise of other members of the interprofessional team or personally enhance the workflow of the interprofessional team
6. Verbalize indications, risks, and steps of common critical care procedures
7. Obtain consent for common critical care procedures
8. Consider cost and potential harms of testing and weigh this against diagnostic value
9. Identify where bias may impact the provision of care in urgent situations
10. Select appropriate clinical decision support tools and apply them in patient care
11. Identify and develop an initial approach to urgent behavioral health situations that may include psychiatric emergencies or delirium
12. Verbalize how social determinants of health can impact exacerbations of chronic disease

Scope of Content

• Diagnosis and management of high-risk chief complaints, including chest pain, dyspnea, altered mental status, arrhythmia, shock, and cardiac arrest.
• Use structured frameworks to develop accurate differentials.
• Stabilize emergent patients with procedures like airway management, CPR, and vascular access.
• Participate in high-acuity simulation scenarios to integrate medical knowledge and develop teamwork skills
• Gain proficiency in advanced clinical reasoning: understand the dual process approach, need for cognitive checks, and appropriate use of evidence based clinical decision rules.
• Approach to stabilizing the unstable/emergent patient: Airway (bag-valve mask, endo-tracheal intubation) Breathing (BiPap, mechanical ventilation) Circulation (CPR, vascular access, vasopressors, anti-arrhythmic, cardioversion, and defibrillation

Assessment

Formative

• End-of-shift feedback
• Peer-to-peer feedback and debriefing during simulations.

Summative

• Global assessment of clinical performance.
• Final Presentation
• EMS write up
• Final Exam

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FEB 10 2025 | cjb