outlet: First10 EM blog 

Some topics just get people excited. The drugs we use during intubation – well, people are going to have an opinion. Etomidate was popular while I trained, but was actually hard to find in the emergency department. Then came worries of adrenal suppression. Was etomidate just changing biochemical outcomes, or was it actually changing patient outcomes? Was etomidate increasing mortality? That debate drove many into the arms of ketamine, but the data has always been questionable. We finally have high quality data, in the form of the RSI trial, but has high quality data ever been the deciding factor in a heated debate?