ou learned it in medic school: nitro “opens the coronary arteries,” and giving it to a right ventricular MI can tank your patient. Nice, clean, easy to test—and maybe not nearly as settled as we’ve been pretending.

In this episode of The Ten Minute Medic, we tear into what nitroglycerin actually does to preload and myocardial oxygen demand, why RV infarctions make us nervous, and the surprisingly thin evidence behind one of EMS pharmacology’s most sacred contraindications.

Know the guideline. Follow your protocol. But for crying out loud, don’t stop asking why.

NTG Study Guide

The clot lands in the lungs—but the right ventricle may be what actually kills the patient. In this episode of the Ten Minute Medic, we follow the deadly chain reaction from rising pulmonary vascular resistance and dead-space ventilation to right-heart failure, obstructive shock, and cardiac arrest. Clear lungs, falling pressure, very bad day—here’s why a pulmonary embolism can make your patient crash frighteningly fast.

PE Study Guide

You know the dose: 1 mg every 3–5 minutes. Congratulations—you’ve memorized the box. But do you actually know what epinephrine is doing after you push it? In this episode of The Ten Minute Medic, we dig into why epi doesn’t magically “restart the heart,” how alpha-mediated vasoconstriction and coronary perfusion pressure give the myocardium a fighting chance, why timing differs between shockable and nonshockable arrests, and why getting ROSC isn’t necessarily the same thing as saving a life. We’ll also tackle the uncomfortable evidence behind our favorite little 1-mg syringe. Because if your entire understanding of epinephrine is “the algorithm says give it,” we need to talk.

Epi ACLS Study Guide