Pediatric Emergency Medicine

Metro Conference

Case Presentations

Each month residents rotating on the pediatric emergency medicine (PEM) services at Children's - St. Paul, Children’s - Minneapolis, Hennepin County Medical Center, and Regions present interesting cases at the monthly Metro PEM Conference. PEM fellows also present cases.

The conference is usually held the fourth Friday of the month at 8:00 AM. The location is rotated between the four campuses. Coffee, pastry, or fruit are usually available. The date and location are on your monthly schedule; ask if you need more specific details.

Cases for presentation fall into one of three categories: an unusual diagnosis, a challenging diagnostic dilemma, or even a straightforward case where the ED management is controversial. The idea is to get everyone thinking and foster a discussion among the attendings and residents from the different institutions on differential, work-up, and/or management. The case does not have to be your own, but that makes it easier to present and answer audience questions. Discuss the case with one of the attendings ahead of time to get their feedback prior to preparing your case.

The whole presentation should go for a MAX of 15 minutes: 5 minutes each for case presentation, discussion, and brief literature review about an aspect of the case. Try to get discussion going before giving answers on differential diagnosis or evaluation or management. Some ideas for presentation include: interesting aspects of the disease, interesting findings in the literature, case controversies (e.g. management options), and teaching points/take home messages

The easiest way to present this is by PowerPoint on a flash (jump) drive. Some sites have good internet access, but you cannot necessarily count on this.