Up to date review and in depth analysis of Emergency Medicine toxicology topics
“He took all his medication,” you chuckle to yourself as you read the chief complaint on the board. “Man, isn’t that what we try to get all our patients to do?” As you open up the patient’s chart, however, your smugness quickly turns to unease when you read through the triage Read more…
It is 6 AM and your shift is winding down. The last patient you are about to see is a 20-year-old man with a complaint of tooth pain. On your walk to his room you start to daydream about enjoying a little sunlight after working 6 nights in a row when you notice your patient is carrying an industrial sized bottle of acetaminophen from which he you just saw him pop five pills.
The Case 50-year-old woman is brought in by EMS after intentional ingestion of her 500 mg extended release valproate in a suicide attempt approximately 40 minutes prior to arrival. She had recently filled her valproate prescription with 80 tablets and took nearly all of them. She admits to feeling depressed Read more…
You’re working a busy shift in the peds ED among a seemingly endless cycle of various permutations of fevers, cough, abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, when another kid pops up on the board: “vomiting, abdominal pain”. Fantastic. You go over to the kid and find a 4-year-old male with no significant Read more…
You are the junior resident working in the Critical Care and Trauma unit of the ED. You think to yourself that it’s a quiet day….then…EMS brings in a patient. The patient is a 67 year-old woman with history of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and congestive heart failure, who is brought Read more…
It’s four o’ clock on a gentle Sunday afternoon. You stir the dregs of your Turkish coffee, secretly hoping for an exciting patient to fill the last three hours of you Critical Care & Trauma shift. As you set your mug on top of the “No eating or drinking!” sign, Read more…
About halfway through your shift in the critical care area of the ED, you are wrapping up a conversation with the medical ICU team about an elderly patient in septic shock when you hear a shout for help from the triage area. You and your intern dash over where you Read more…
About halfway through your relatively quiet shift in the Critical Care & Trauma area of your ED you hear an overhead notification, “stroke code to triage!” You and Padma the intern set down your tasty cappuccinos and speed walk to the triage area where you see a middle aged Read more…
The notification phone rings. A thrill runs up your spine as your talented intern picks up the phone. “Mhmm…Mhmm…,” she mutters as you hear the faint voice of the EMS dispatcher on the line. Your intern summarizes, “20 year old male – found unresponsive at a party– tachycardic, Read more…
She was a 14 year-old rebellious, care-free, hippie, feminist, vegan, gluten-free teenager, sitting in her room watching Donald Trump’s RNC speech. It only took few minutes till she furiously got out her room and started roaming around the house. From afar, she saw her mommy’s orange pill box, typed on Read more…