This is Steve Carroll, and you're listening to the Amb Basic podcast.

Today we're going to be doing a big podcast on the topic of pulmonary ambulism.

This podcast has been a long time coming for a few reasons.

The biggest reason is that the diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary embolism is a rapidly

evolving field, fraught with lots of controversy and opinions,

so I guess I subconsciously stayed away from it during the first two years of the podcast.

However, this is a diagnosis that we consider a lot in the emergency department,

and you need to have a systematic way of thinking about this diagnosis

in order to get it right and not cause any unnecessary harms for the patient.

In the first installment of this two-part episode, we'll talk about how you decide whether you

should work up a patient for a PE and the tests you need to order to do the workup.

Part 2 will focus on how to restratify patients with PE and how to give them the appropriate

treatment.

You will find that every clinician has their own approach and opinions on this complicated topic,

so keep that in mind when you're incorporating this into your own practice.

While I will focus on the diagnosis of PE, you can't talk about PE without talking a little

bit about deep vein thrombosis or DVT since they exist

on a continuum. I will do a separate episode on DBT in the future, but just realize that there's a

lot of overlap between these two topics. With that, let's get started. As always, this podcast

doesn't represent the views and opinions of department defense, the U.S. Harmony at the Fort Hood Post

Command. Let's start by talking about the definition and pathophys of DVT and PE. PE is caused by a clot that is formed in the deep

veins of the pelvis or legs and is traveled or embolized to the pulmonary vasculature. Clots can also be

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