Department Blog

Amal Mattu, MD, and his colleagues from the University of Virginia published a review titled “ED Evaluation and Management of Implantable Cardiac Defibrillator Electrical Shocks,” in the June issue of the American Journal of Emergency Medicine. In this article, the authors review the function of defibrillators; discuss the causes of appropriate and inappropriate shocks; and present algorithms for the assessment and stabilization of patients who have experienced one, multiple, or phantom "firings."