Episode 52: Commonly Missed Uncommon Orthopedic Injuries

We rarely discuss medico-legal issues on EM Cases because it misguides us a bit from good patient centered care – which is what emergency medicine is really all about. Nonetheless, missed orthopedic injuries are the most common reason for an emergency doc to be sued in Canada. This is partly because missed orthopedic injuries are far more common than missed MIs for example, but it’s also because it’s easy to miss certain orthopedic injuries – especially the ones that aren’t super common. And orthopedics is difficult to learn and remember for the EM practitioner as there are so many injuries to remember. And so, you guessed it – on this episode we’re going to run through some key not-so-common, easy to miss orthopedic injuries, some of which I, personally had to learn about the hard way, if you know what I mean. After listening to this episode, try some cognitive forcing strategies – for every patient with a FOOSH that you see, look for and document a DRUJ injury. Wait, hold on….I don’t wanna give it all away at the top of the post. Let’s hear what EM doc and sports medicine guru Ivy Cheng, and the orthopedic surgeon who everyone at North York General turns to when they need help with a difficult ortho case, Hossein Medhian, have to say about Commonly Missed Uncommon Orthopedic Injuries.