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, with a bit too much time on your hands, so Read more…
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. PMH: Questionable COPD – treated once PSH: denies Meds: denies Read more…
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 the Cold War with this speech. Who knew that many Read more…
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 too hard. You also treated Mr. Burns for narcissistic personality disorder! Read more…
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 course and was told it was likely a viral syndrome. He Read more…
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 and apple juice, so you’re a bit delirious. You start Read more…
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 pinpoint. You see track marks up and down his arms. Read more…
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 a particularly busy shift, I was starting to see spots Read more…
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 pops up on the board. Despite the risk of crashing Read more…
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. Her vitals are: BP 102/66, pulse 120, respiratory rate 24, Read more…