Behind the scenes as an ACEP Scientific Assembly speaker, Day 3

My favorite part about my "Tricks of the Trade" lecture is hearing audience members talk about their own creative trick-of-the-trade approach to common dilemmas in the ED. This lecture was no different. A lot of folks came up with some great tips that I hope to highlight in future ACEP News columns. I'll be working on getting photos.


To whet your appetite, I got some amazing tips about:

• Creating a temporary fingernail bed cover to keep the eponychial folds patent until the new nail grows out
• How to endotracheally intubate a patient using a generic (non-intubating) LMA apparatus
• How to endotracheally intubate a morbidly obese patient with shortness of breath
  

Thanks to all who came up to chat with me. I feel like I'm really the lucky one to serve as the central repository of ideas. It's great to hear of everyone's creative approaches. I'm looking forward to sharing with those in our specialty.

Common dilemma in lecturing:
Which screen do you look at when you have a screen on either side of the podium? Do you laser-point on both or just one?

Answer:
Since I was able to use my Macintosh laptop for my presentation, I can actually draw on the slide itself when I hit command-p. This converts the mouse arrow to a pencil icon. This allows me to draw on both slides at once. I hit "e" to erase my marks. To return the mouse key to look like an arrow icon, I hit command-a for automatic.