You decide to take a break from the city and moonlight in a small rural hospital. You think you’ll be chilling for the night seeing urinary tract infections, or maybe you’ll finally see that snake bite you never thought you’d…
It’s 2 AM and you’re about to walk out to get some coffee when the notification phone rings. The prehospital dispatcher informs you, “24-year-old male with two gunshot wounds to the abdomen, BP 70/P, HR 128, R 30, ETA 5…
What if you woke up in a hospital and found out your mortal enemy had surgically removed your face and glued it onto his own and now he was out in the world pretending to be you? Living your life, hanging with all…
It’s Monday morning in the ED, and to your greatest surprise, it’s been quiet for a few hours. You are a bit too superstitious to say anything out loud, but you are pretty excited. In fact you are so excited,…
Case: A 48 year-old man with no PMH presents via EMS with dyspnea and diarrhea worsening over 2-3 weeks. He has attempted to self-treat the diarrhea with loperamide. He also reports generalized weakness, swelling in both his legs, and palpitations.…
A 54 year-old woman with history of gastric band surgery and 10 years of uncontrolled hypertension has had 4 weeks of progressively increasing abdominal girth, exertional dyspnea, and dependent edema. Today, the patient has dyspnea at rest with epigastric pain.…
Over the Memorial Day weekend, I was so bored I binge watched the Rocky anthology. My favorite movie of the anthology is Rocky IV, not just because of the way he boxed, but mostly because he may have single-handedly ended…
By Surriya Ahmad and Kylie Birnbaum It’s a busy night in the Springfield ED. You’ve just treated Lisa for a pneumothorax after she played her sax too hard, and you’ve treated her brother Bart for a laceration from skating…
Dr. McCallister, an ED physician, thinks back to his childhood. Remember when I almost killed those two burglars when I got lost in New York? I should reach out to them. And why did I keep getting left places? Were my…
A 2 year-old boy is brought to the ED by his mother for persistent fevers. The mother says her child has been having high fevers of 102-103 for the past 4-5 days. He was seen at another hospital earlier in the…
You’re sitting in the peds ED, and just about done with the 10th URI you’ve seen all day. You’ve got the sniffles from those cute coughing babies, and you’ve been getting through the day on just those “free” pedialyte icee’s…
An unknown young male makes his way into the critical care area of your emergency department on a boring night. He is minimally responsive and is breathing at a very slow rate. You look at his pupils, and they are…
Both of this month’s responses hit the diagnosis square on the head: Dr. Schnitzer’s succinct reply with the differential, work-up, and disposition, and Dr. Hernandez’s expanded (and entertaining) discussion. Click here to review the case. A quick recap: A 15…
After reading this post, you will be able to take your lecture to the next level of excellence!
It’s always a balancing act of knowing when to eat on shift. You’re hypoglycemic, but you just saw a patient with gastroenteritis. You’ve got to wash your hands and grab a quick snack before you syncopize or get gastro! On…
It’s 4am in the emergency department, and you’ve finally reached a lull in the onslaught of patients after having finally successfully bailed out the flood from the afternoon. An individual very familiar to you and the rest of the department…
ECG: NSR @ 90 bpm, normal axis, S1Q3T3 pattern BACKGROUND S1Q3T3 was first described in 1935 in JAMA by Drs. McGinn & White They report a case series of 9 patients with pulmonary embolism (PE) and “acute cor pulmonale”…
Setting the Scene Your patient is a 21 year-old female with a history of type 1 diabetes mellitus who was brought to the ED by her boyfriend for diminished responsiveness. In a stupor, she is unable to give any history.…
By Yanmen Yang, PharmD What is tranexamic acid? Tranexamic acid (TXA) is an antifibrinolytic agent approved by the Food and Drug Administration in December 1996 as an intravenous injection to reduce hemorrhage during tooth extractions and as an oral…
An 18 year-old female presents with rectal pain for one day. She states she was constipated for the past couple days and now has diarrhea. She started to experience painful stooling on the day of presentation. Stools are brown, loose…
