Emergency medicine learning with department-level texture.
RCEM Learning is a clinically focused emergency medicine show built around guideline updates, papers, interviews, and CPD-linked learning. Robert Hurst keeps the pace conversational, moving from seasonal asides and rota-weary jokes into detailed discussion of real ED decisions.
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RCEM Learning is an emergency medicine education podcast for clinicians who want guidance, papers, and practice changes discussed in the language of the department. It is structured enough for CPD, but rarely sterile. Robert Hurst opens episodes with seasonal humour, shift-life weariness, and self-deprecating updates before turning toward the month’s clinical material. That tonal shift matters. The show makes space for the lived texture of emergency medicine while still taking the medicine seriously. Recent episodes work through topics that are immediately recognisable to ED staff: rib fractures, atrial fibrillation, acute behavioural disturbance, sexual assault care, asthma exacerbations, AI interpretation of ECG findings, cath lab activation, and overcrowding research. The discussions are often granular. A rib fracture guideline becomes a conversation about analgesia escalation, CT considerations, frailty, spinal or scapular injury, and the limits of what a flow chart can dictate. Sexual assault care is handled as a systems issue as well as a clinical one, with attention to SARC referral, consent, safeguarding, sexual health, head injury, non-fatal strangulation, and the continuing duty of care when specialist access is delayed or declined. Acute behavioural disturbance is presented with similar breadth. Episodes consider intoxication, withdrawal, mental health conditions, hypoxia, glucose disturbance, sepsis, head injury, heat stroke, seizures, capacity assessment, staff safety, and medication choices such as benzodiazepines, ketamine, droperidol, and haloperidol. The show also keeps returning to how practice changes over time. Atrial fibrillation management is discussed as a shifting landscape rather than a fixed algorithm, with contributors comparing older habits, newer guidance, and the reality of ageing populations with more comorbidity. Research episodes pay attention to method as well as headline findings, including how resident doctors helped capture corridor care across emergency departments at different times of the week. RCEM Learning is not polished into blandness. It has jokes about night shifts, exams, logins, weather, babies, and professional fatigue. Those moments make the clinical sections feel grounded rather than ornamental. Its distinguishing value is the combination: formal emergency medicine learning, candid working-clinician conversation, and enough editorial discipline to keep returning to what should change at the bedside.
Made for: For emergency medicine clinicians, trainees, and acute care professionals who want practical discussion of guidelines, papers, CPD topics, and changing ED practice.
What sets it apart: RCEM Learning mixes CPD-ready clinical education with candid, conversational discussion from emergency medicine voices. It turns guidelines into real department decisions without sanding away the uncertainty.
A twice monthly #foamed podcast from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine. Literature reviews, guideline updates and interviews with the smartest minds in Emergency Medicine.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Detailed clinical discussion, practical qualifications and dry humor make emergency medicine guidance easier to apply under real-world constraints.
RCEM Learning turns emergency medicine guidance into working clinical judgment. Robert Hurst anchors detailed conversations with dry, self-deprecating humor, then moves briskly into decisions clinicians face in the emergency department.
Even the rib-fracture flowchart won't order the CT for you.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A clear discussion of SARC referral, patient choice and continuing emergency care.
A SARC referral is only one part of care after a sexual assault. In this March conversation, the speakers draw a useful line between what a local SARC can provide and what an emergency department still needs to do.
A practical reading of a rib injury guideline, from pain relief to when CT should be considered.
Robert Hurst opens the February episode after a night shift and an exchange about a colleague who fractured both wrists. The conversation settles on a rib injury guideline, with attention to pain relief, early involvement of other teams and the circumstances in which CT should…
Chris and Becky revisit atrial fibrillation care in the emergency department and how their practice has changed.
Chris and Becky return to atrial fibrillation with years of emergency care experience behind them. Chris recalls how he has handled it in the emergency department, including rate control, IV drugs and DC cardioversion.
Agitation care and shared decisions through a speaker's experience in UK and New Zealand emergency practice.
In this July Arkem Learning discussion, the speaker compares approaches to agitation care in the UK and New Zealand. They say ambulance teams in New Zealand often decide on chemical restraint before transport and tend to use ketamine.
A grounded look at possible causes, patient safety and capacity in acute behavioural disturbance.
Acute behavioural disturbance is easy to read as intoxication or a mental health condition. Robert Hurst and Chris Connolly ask clinicians to pause over other possible causes: substance withdrawal, hypoxia, hyperglycemia, sepsis, head injury, heat stroke and seizures.
Using cyanide, the hosts show how CREST can guide a flexible toxicology assessment.
In this May 2025 discussion, the hosts use cyanide to walk clinicians through CREST: consciousness, respiratory rate, eyes, skin and other features.
Reported stories of responsibility and its consequences.
Researchers, doctors and coaches, translated into everyday health stakes.
The hosts discuss a college statement supporting diversity and addressing the Southport attack, then shift to the challenges of workplace changeover.
Host Robert Hurst introduces the March 2023 episode of the Arkem Learning Podcast, covering a sepsis trial, ED management, and sustainability initiatives.
Hosts Robert and Liz discuss personal updates and a new guideline based on the 'no one's listening report' in the July 2024 episode of the Arkham Learning Podcast.
Robert Hurst introduces the September episode of the Alchem Learning Podcast, previewing segments on AI interpretation of ECGs, asthma management, and atrial fibrillation guidelines.
The February 2023 episode of the Arkem Learning Podcast covers pacing pad placement, blood pressure targets in post-ROSC patients, cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, and a new online segment.
Host Robert Hurst introduces the March episode of the Arkem Learning Podcast, discussing upcoming segments on paediatric pain management and adult emergency guidelines.
Host Robert Hurst introduces the February episode of the Arkem Learning Podcast, discussing personal injuries and previewing segments on spinal cord injury blood pressure targets and a New Zealand chest injury guideline.
A medical podcast discussing new studies on CT scanning in sepsis, bicarbonate in acidemia, and the TURN/uncorked study on crowded emergency departments.
Robert Hurst returns to the RChem Learning Podcast after a hiatus, sharing personal updates and exam success while thanking listeners.
Robert Hurst introduces the September episode of the Alchem Learning Podcast, previewing segments on AI interpretation of ECGs, asthma management, and atrial fibrillation guidelines.
Andy and Dave discuss a 94-ED UK study of 8,500 chest-pain presentations, where high-sensitivity troponin assays and HEART or T-MAX scores were widely used.
Erin Mills's 2025 Lancet study links caregiver concern with ICU admission in nearly 74,000 children.
RCEM Learning's June 2025 episode pairs a 2025 JAMA Surgery cohort on pre-hospital resuscitative thoracotomy with a May 2025 Arkem guideline on acute behavioural disturbance.
Toxbase has a symptom search that can list substances from “loss of consciousness” and “bradycardia.”