Emergency Medicine

Emergency medicine continues to make progress in resuscitation, prehospital care, trauma, and toxicology. Approximately 500 000 people in the United States die each year from coronary artery disease. Although the number has decreased over the past two decades, sudden cardiac death represents about 25% of all deaths in the United States. Survival from cardiac arrest depends on the prompt institution of advanced life support, particularly electrical defibrillation. Since about 65% of cardiac arrests occur outside the hospital, strategies have been developed to minimize time until defibrillation in the community. During the past year, studies have confirmed the usefulness of automatic external defibrillators in improving survival from cardiac arrest.^1,2 Automatic defibrillators are capable of analyzing the cardiac rhythm and delivering or advising resuscitators to deliver an electrical shock. The usefulness of this device depends on the emergency medical services system available in each community. Automatic external defibrillators will have the