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Emergency physicians often encounter patients in pain and may also have to cope with other problems (eg, alcohol intoxication, a patient's stubborn will to drive after the emergency department visit, narcotic "allergy"). Novel approaches can be used to treat these patients. Dr Heller discusses such approaches, including measures for treating patients with drug-seeking behavior (eg, use of nonnarcotic parenteral agents), and describes treatment options for patients with such specific conditions as hypotension, chest pain, and renal colic.

Open-chest cardiac massage was widely and successfully used for many decades before its virtual abandonment 25 years ago. Both experimental evidence and basic physiologic evidence indicate that it has many advantages over closed-chest massage (especially increased cardiac output). Both resuscitation techniques have specific and unique advantages and disadvantages: They are not mutually exclusive. However, significant increases in rates of survival after cardiac arrest cannot be expected with variations of closed-chest cardiac massage and standard advanced life support services. Therefore, physicians must be willing to support controlled human studies that can definitively determine the proper role of each in resuscitation after cardiac arrest.