The number of abstracts submitted for presentation at EUSEM 2024 is back to pre-COVID levels according to chair of the congress abstract selection committee, Dr Barbra Backus.

A total of 1228 abstracts were submitted by the main submission deadline on 7 May, and the committee chose 166 for oral presentation, 49 for eposters with five-minute oral presentations (moderated posters) and 839 for presentation as eposters.

Barbra, who has been a member of the abstract selection committee for five years and is also an associate editor of the European Journal of Emergency Medicine, says: “We had a very good number of submissions, and the quality of the research is certainly good.”

This year, the committee is trying a different approach for the abstract presentations in order to mitigate the problem of having large numbers of moderated posters during the breaks between scientific sessions when the attention of participants is often divided between posters, socialising, networking and visiting the exhibition.

“We decided to increase the number of orals and have fewer moderated posters in the hope of improving well-deserved attention for the presenters,” she said. “We have a ‘Best Abstracts’ session on Monday 14 October between 09:00 and 10:30 that is really important. This is for abstracts of high-quality, which have been highly rated during the abstract selection process because of their good methodology, a good sample size, or because they are interesting and very relevant for a broad spectrum of emergency physicians. But of course, all the abstract sessions will be important and interesting for different reasons.

“This year we’ve seen a few more abstracts submitted on artificial intelligence, environmental topics, ‘green’ emergency departments and pollution, which are all important topics. Then there are abstracts on recurring themes such as biomarkers, cardiovascular emergency medicine, geriatrics, neurology and paediatrics that, together with things like trauma care, resuscitation, risk stratification and ultrasound, are all part of our core business. Almost all of these important topics fill at least one full session with abstracts.”

Barbra, who is an emergency physician in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, is now encouraging researchers to submit late breaking abstracts (LBAs) to the congress between 16 and 23 September. She expects approximately 100 to be submitted and about six will be selected for oral presentation.

“Late breaking abstracts need to be innovative, not just an abstract that, for instance, is mainstream, that could have been submitted three months ago but the researchers were too late with their analysis so are submitting as late-breaking. Late-breaking should be ground-breaking. We are keen to see multi-centre abstracts on innovative medicine that is applicable to emergency medicine and physicians, and that can make an impact on the quality of health care provided in emergency departments.”

Barbra concludes: “We have a really good and interesting programme for EUSEM 2024. Although the bigger sessions, with keynote speakers, tend to attract larger audiences, people may be surprised that the oral abstract sessions are just as important in terms of the research quality, innovation and newsworthiness. These studies are our knowledge and practice of the future.”

View the programme here

We regret to inform you that some registrants have reported receiving scam attempts from the following emails address: info"at"eusemconference.org or booking"at"gtravelmanagement.com requesting contact and passport details.

We want to emphasise that EUSEM 2024 is entirely organised by EUSEM. In addition, registrants are required to create an email account on our secure “MyEUSEM” platform to register for our congress. We will never request your personal details and payment via email or over the phone.

The only legit mail domain are:

• mcocongres.com
• eusem.org
• eusemcongress.org

Dear member,

We are pleased to announce the outcome of the recent election for vice president, which concluded on 25 July.

Prof. Ashraf Butt        130               

Prof. Said Laribi          127 

Abstention                   11   

The EUSEM Syncope Group have published a consensus statement in the European Journal of Emergency Medicine on the general process of the workup and care for patients with suspected syncope, providing rules for sufficient and systematic management of the broad group of syncope (initially presenting as TLOC) patients in the ED. A variety of European diagnostic and therapeutic standards for syncope patients were reviewed and summarized in three rounds of a modified Delphi process by the European Society for Emergency Medicine Syncope Group. Based on a consensus statement, a detailed process pathway was created. The primary outcome of this work is the presentation of a universal process pathway for the structured management of syncope patients in European EDs. The presented extended event process chain (eEPC) summarizes and homogenizes the process management of European ED syncope patients. Additionally, an exemplary translation of the eEPC into a practice-based flowchart algorithm, which can be used as an example for practical use in the ED, is provided in this work. Syncope patients, initially presenting with TLOC, are common and pose challenges in the ED. Despite variations in process management across Europe, the development of a universally applicable syncope eEPC in the ED was successfully achieved. Key features of the consensus and eEPC include ruling out life-threatening causes, distinguishing syncope from nonsyncopal TLOCs, employing syncope risk stratification categories and based on this, making informed decisions regarding admission or discharge.

Click here to read the full statement here.

 The European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS) has approved  new training requirements for clinicians working in emergency medicine (EM). The European Training  Requirement (ETR) is, essentially, the curriculum for physicians dealing with all health emergencies in adult and paediatric patients. The ETR is intended  to strengthen training in EM across the board, and defines the skills and capabilities needed to work as a specialist in EM.

 The document was unanimously approved by all of the National Medical Associations at the UEMS council in April along with approval from the UEMS specialist Sections and Boards.  This is particularly important as it ensures the approval and support of all specialties for the scope of practice of emergency medicine and the role EM plays in healthcare in Europe. The document defines clearly the key working relationships with other specialties and emphasises the need to work as collaborators and partners with colleagues to provide the best care for patients. The document includes descriptions of the professional skills required, including those of educator, scholar, communicator, collaborator and leader.

 The document was written by a group comprised of members of the UEMS Section and Board for Emergency Medicine, the EUSEM education committee and the young Emergency Medicine doctors. This group worked for 18 months on updating and refreshing the existing ETR and is delighted to have achieved unanimous approval for it.

 The ETR is clearly vital to the care of all patients, but is particularly important in relation to caring for emergencies in children, where a recent survey has shown significant gaps in child health training across Europe. The ETR now states explicitly that at least 20% of the five- year minimum training in EM should be spent in dealing with paediatric emergencies. It is hoped that by standardising the training required, reduce  variation in the care provided to children in emergency departments will be reduced,  as well as inequalities in healthcare.

 “This ETR publication is timely and coincides with a paper in  the European Journal of Emergency Medicine* that reports the results of a survey of all member countries of EUSEM to determine current training in paediatric emergency medicine. Results from the survey showed that while the total time spent in emergency medicine training in European countries was generally adequate, paediatric EM training took up a very small proportion of that time – from one to 11 months. The new ETR should lead to an improvement in this ratio in the future,” says Dr Ruth Brown, from the Department of Emergency Medicine, St Mary’s Hospital, President of the UEMS emergency medicine section, and a co-author of the paper.

 It is important that trainees work with paediatric specialists to improve their skills and competencies, says the paper’s first author, Dr Ruud G. Nijman, from the Department of Paediatric Emergency Medicine, St Mary’s Hospital. London, UK. “More work needs to be done to improve the confidence and competence of clinicians in dealing with acutely injured and unwell children, and the new version of the training requirements are an important step forward in that respect.”

 “We welcome the new training requirements as they underline the worth of not just the specialism of paediatric emergency medicine, but emergency medicine as a whole,” said EUSEM President, Dr Jim Connolly.

The new UEMS requirements can be found here

Also read the full article on "Providing urgent and emergency care to children and young people: training requirements for emergency medicine specialty trainees" in EJEM.