Trauma: Alcohol Intoxication

Course overview

Alcohol-intoxicated patients represent a high-risk emergency presentation. The emergency practitioner must be extremely diligent in diagnosing coexisting, life-threatening disorders, providing the highest quality of patient care, and protecting patients' constitutional rights. To properly manage intoxicated patients, emergency practitioners must understand several important clinical and medical-legal principles. In addition, it is imperative for clinicians to be aware of the common medical errors made in relation to this important disease entity. In this activity, cases are presented and discussed to help illustrate key principles as well as the common errors made during the evaluation and management of intoxicated patients. This activity will assist emergency practitioners in acting confidently and competently in providing optimal patient care, protecting the patient against the risk of injury, and avoiding subsequent litigation. After completing this activity, practitioners should be able to: recognize that alcohol-intoxicated patients may present with a wide variety of life-threatening conditions; plan an approach to the management of the alcohol-intoxicated patient that includes a careful assessment of whether the patient has the mental capacity to refuse treatment and sign out against medical advice; and consider the rate of alcohol metabolism in an alcohol-intoxicated patient in order to provide optimal management and appropriate discharge.