Cases, pitfalls, and bedside decisions.
Emergency Medicine Cases is a clinically focused medical education show for emergency care. Recent episodes move from cardiac arrest and status epilepticus to endometriosis, thyroid storm, febrile infants, malpractice lessons, and quick-hit decision rules.
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Emergency Medicine Cases is built around the emergency department moment when uncertainty meets time pressure. The format is practical. Episodes commonly start with a case, a vital-sign pattern, or a management fork, then move through the reasoning that separates dangerous mimics from lower-risk presentations. Cardiac arrest coverage is treated as more than a checklist. Recent updates revisit CPR quality, compression fraction, recoil, ventilation discipline, shock strategy, pad position, POCUS integration, medication choices, airway management, termination decisions, and post-ROSC care. The tone stays clinical without becoming detached. It asks what changes management now. That same approach carries into status epilepticus, where timing, acidosis, cardiovascular collapse, and CNS damage make delay part of the disease process. In endocrine emergencies, thyroid storm is presented through the messy doorway view of fever, agitation, tremor, irregular tachycardia, and competing diagnoses. Endometriosis care is handled through recurrent severe pelvic pain, vomiting, menstrual timing, and risk stratification in a crowded overnight ED. Pediatric risk is another recurring lane. The PECARN febrile young infant tool episode focuses on when lumbar puncture and empiric antibiotics may be safely avoided. Quick Hits episodes widen the lens. They collect fever without a source, traumatic pneumothorax and hemothorax decisions, PECARN C-spine, medetomidine withdrawal, EMS handover, contrast allergy, post-circumcision bleeding, intracranial hemorrhage consultation, and emotional contagion. The show also uses Med Mal Cases to pull lessons from closed malpractice cases without framing them as blame exercises. It is not casual health commentary. It is continuing education for people who know the stakes of resuscitation bays, waiting rooms, handovers, and missed diagnoses. The best fit is a clinician who wants repeated exposure to edge cases and practice drift. The value is in the translation from evidence to bedside behavior.
Made for: Emergency physicians, residents, nurses, paramedics, and medically trained listeners who want case-based emergency medicine education. It best suits people comfortable with technical discussion, guidelines, and high-acuity clinical scenarios.
What sets it apart: The show pairs guideline interpretation with concrete patient presentations, repeatedly asking what should happen at the bedside. Its Quick Hits and Med Mal Cases formats add short-form pearls and risk lessons alongside full clinical episodes.
Emergency Medicine Cases – Where the Experts Keep You in the Know. For show notes, quizzes, videos and more learning tools please visit emergencymedicinecases.com
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Dr. Anton Hellman makes emergency care's difficult thresholds, local constraints and next-step decisions easier to follow.
Emergency Medicine Cases turns urgent clinical decisions into clear sequences of recognition, risk and action. Host Dr. Anton Hellman moves between focused discussions and multi-topic Quick Hits, pressing guests for the distinctions that change care: disabling versus…
At a smaller hospital, your stroke algorithm runs into the transfer map.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A practical episode on recognizing hypothyroid emergencies inside subtle, multisystem presentations.
Hypothyroid emergencies are framed as the kind of diagnostic problem that can slip past a busy workup. The concerning patient may show up with hypothermia, delirium, falls, subacute cognitive decline, hyponatremia, or quieter neurologic, cardiac, and electrolyte abnormalities…
A brisk emergency medicine review with especially useful teaching on post-dural puncture headache.
Emergency Medicine Cases' EM Quick Hits 69 moves briskly across emergency medicine teaching points, from pediatric urinary retention and thrombolysis for stroke to fight bites, ECG and POCUS, and post-dural puncture headache.
A case-led look at recognizing non-disabling stroke when mild or transient symptoms may seem falsely reassuring.
A 25-year-old patient with abrupt facial droop and arm paresthesias anchors Anton Hellman, Katie Lynn and Walter Himmel's examination of transient ischemic attacks and non-disabling strokes.
A practical guide to urgent stroke decisions when imaging, expertise, and transfer options vary.
Disabling ischemic stroke care leaves little room for delay, and this review keeps its attention on the decisions that matter early. The clearest stretch turns general guidance into a workable sequence: activate the stroke team, obtain a non-contrast CT when available, assess…
A brisk emergency medicine round with especially practical guidance on tourniquet removal and shift-work nutrition.
Emergency Medicine Cases works like a brisk teaching round for emergency-department decisions made under pressure. This single episode starts with RSI medication timing, then settles into especially useful material on prolonged tourniquet use and food choices around…
A veteran emergency physician turns adversity into a practice of curiosity, empathy, and support.
Walter Hemel's 40 years in emergency medicine anchor a reflective review of how clinicians meet adversity day after day. He starts with the moral weight of the work: healthcare professionals save lives and help people, yet also carry the capacity to cause harm.
Local medicine, told through physicians' lives.
Clinical oncology evidence, translated into treatment decisions.
Dr.
EM Quick Hits 62 presents six rapid-fire clinical updates for emergency physicians.
This episode discusses how master clinicians think in complex emergency cases, covering history taking, physical exam, differential diagnosis, test ordering, cognitive de-biasing, and performance-enhancing strategies outside shifts.
Hosts Anton Helman and Katie Lynn open with an 80-year-old man on apixaban for atrial fibrillation who arrives hypoxic at 84% with bilateral bleeding and gurgling.
This episode updates cardiac arrest management beyond 2025 ACLS guidelines, covering medications, airway, termination, and post-ROSC care.
Emergency Medicine Cases examines adult cardiac arrest management beyond the 2025 AHA ACLS guidelines, using a 54-year-old soccer spectator who receives seven shocks and three doses of epinephrine as its opening case.
Dr.
This episode discusses how emergency physicians can recognize, risk stratify, and initiate management for endometriosis in the ED.
An emergency medicine podcast episode discussing updated management strategies for status epilepticus, emphasizing time-critical interventions to prevent severe complications.
This episode discusses the PECARN febrile young infant prediction tool to determine when it is safe to forgo lumbar puncture and empiric antibiotics in febrile infants.
This episode of EM Quick Hits covers medical malpractice cases and key emergency medicine topics including upper back pain, traumatic pneumothorax/hemothorax decision making, risk stratification of ICH for consultation, post-circumcision bleeds, IV contrast allergy, and emotional contagion.
This episode covers the recognition and management of thyrotoxicosis and thyroid storm in the emergency department.
"Myxedema coma" is a misleading name because most patients are not comatose and the edema is not only pretibial.
Pediatric urinary retention can be the first sign of acute transverse myelitis, not dehydration.
Emergency Medicine Cases examines non-disabling ischemic stroke through examples such as 25-year-old Ms.
Emergency Medicine Cases hosts Anton Hellman, Katie Lynn, and Walter Himmel explain the shift from NIHSS-based major-versus-minor labels to patient-centered disabling-versus-non-disabling stroke decisions.
This episode of EM Quick Hits covers five clinical topics and features an interview with Judith Tintinalli as part of the Women in EM Leader Series.