To help all of our emergency medicine colleagues, ACEP will provide a collection of three courses presented at ACEP14 that offer the latest updates in the treatment and management of Ebola virus disease.

The timing of the Ebola cases in the United States brought more media attention to the ACEP annual meeting this year, and also piqued the interest of attendees, who packed the course rooms on these timely topics.

Swaminatha Mahadevan, MD, FACEP, will be presenting one of these courses, “Infections From Abroad: Unwanted Souvenirs,” at 8 a.m. Wednesday at McCormick Place West, Skyline Ballroom, W375 A.

“Patients that come in with a fever that have been traveling actually have other diseases that we tend to forget about in light of the Ebola crisis,” Dr. Mahadevan said. “And so the lecture’s really meant to teach physicians, medical students, and allied health professionals about those diseases, how to recognize them, diagnose them, and treat them. And so, if it isn’t Ebola, then what do you need to worry about?”

“I think if there’s anything good to come from the Ebola crisis, it’s that now the first question is ‘Have you been traveling and where?’ And once you ask that question, it opens up a whole host of diagnoses you don’t want to miss,” he added.

The courses will be captured live and put online so everyone who cares for patients in emergency departments—not just ACEP members—can watch them for free. Each course has a pretest, an audio and slide presentation of the lecture as it was delivered live in Chicago, and a post-test approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit.

Beginning Friday, the courses will be available at www.acep.org/acep14EbolaCourses.

The courses are:

Inside the Hot Zone: Highly Infectious Pathogens in the ED
Speaker: David C. Pigott, MD, RDMS, FACEP
Which pathogens are most likely to be encountered in the emergency department? Which ones present the greatest risk for health care providers and other personnel? This case-based review includes a discussion of appropriate barrier precautions, personal protective equipment, and department and hospital-based infectious disease transmission precautions.

Ebola: Hemorrhagic Fever and the U.S. Experience
Speakers: David C. Pigott, MD, RDMS, FACEP, and Alexander P. Isakov, MD, FACEP
Now that the Ebola epidemic in West Africa has made its way to the United States, everyone who cares for patients in emergency departments must learn more about the risk factors for exposure, the clinical features, and considerations for evaluation and management. This course highlights the most recent recommendations for infection control and prevention applicable for out-of-hospital and emergency department health care workers.