TASER: Tasmanian Emergency Medicine Research
A MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR As members of the Tasmanian emergency medicine community we have the privilege, honour and obligation to care for patients, often at their most vulnerable. In 2019-2020, across all Tasmanian Emergency Departments this care was represented by a total of 319,117 presentations.
H Image Supplied: Zachary Robinson
The bene its of inspiring a research culture goes beyond the direct research question. Such culture inspires the everyday practice of critical thinking, inquiry and advancement of a sharpened clinical instinct
ow we cared for these patients is developed through education and knowledge established through a wealth of research. Re ecting on how we care for patients, from the considered selection of analgesics, the best imaging modality to investigate a clinical question, development of a nurse navigator role as well as our various ‘code’ protocols, we nd that most are underpinned by decades of research. As people who work in and around emergency care in Tasmania, the bene ts of inspiring a research culture goes beyond the direct research question. Such culture inspires the everyday practice of critical thinking, inquiry and advancement of a sharpened clinical instinct. It is not necessary for all of us to reach for the heights of principal investigator on an NHMRC grant. Instead, as practitioners of evidence-based medicine, our prerequisite is to understand the rules of evidence to enable appraisal of the strengths, weaknesses and applicability of research for the patients we care for. By updating our knowledge using evidence-based sources through mediums such as journal clubs, conferences or social media, we are creating and contributing to this notion of critical thinking and acknowledging the importance of research in practice. The inaugural publication of the Tasmanian Emergency Medicine
Research Group: Research Highlights 2019-20, celebrates the birth of this culture by heralding a coordinated e ort to promote research in Tasmania. This publication re ects on the e orts thus far and in doing so, acknowledges the fact that our research is part of the spirit of emergency medicine (EM) that drives excellence in care.
Emergency Medicine, Research & Tasmania Emergency medicine in Australasia is one of the youngest specialities, being recognised as such in 1993. For comparison, the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and the Royal Australasian College of Physicians were founded in 1927 and 1938 respectively. Our youth as a specialty is therefore also represented in our presence and eminence in clinical research. Other challenges with succeeding in research in our speciality includes the very nature of our craft. With the magni cation of access block, the rise of burnout and coupled with the limited ownership of speci c disease processes and limited contact time in the patient journey, how we practice EM research can often be dictated by less time-poor and more research-experienced specialities. Although many of these factors may seek to exonerate EM from comparison
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