Case: A 2 year-old male with no significant PMH is brought to the Emergency Department by his mother for intermittent abdominal pain for the past two days. Mom notes that the child will crouch down into a ball when he has pain, which lasts only a few minutes at a time. He has decreased solid food intake but no vomiting or diarrhea and is otherwise well.<
It’s another busy shift in the Emergency Department and you are seeing the third patient of the day in atrial fibrillation with rapid ventricular response. You think to yourself, “simple plan and disposition: stabilize, start on a diltiazem infusion, anticoagulate and admit to cardiology, right?” Well before you proceed with this well accepted approach, consider an alternative management strategy where you can even discharge the patient home!
Patella fractures represent 1% of all fractures and are commonly seen after direct trauma to the bone (fall onto flexed knee, "dashboard" injury"). When to involve your consulting orthopedic surgeon is a key branch point in the management and care of these patients.
Ketorolac (toradol) remains one of the giant pillars of pain management in the Emergency Department as the climate of non-opiate analgesia strengthens. This post aims to summarize recently published evidence revealing a lower analgesic ceiling for this medication.
Case: 43 year old woman presents to Emergency Department after falling from height of second-story window after locking herself out of the house. Patient reports falling onto her left hip. On physical exam, no leg length discrepancy and no bony tenderness to palpation of left hip. The patient cannot move her left lower extremity at the hip and has significant pain with minimal passive range of motion.
Answer: B) Fournier's Gangrene.
Case: A 74 yo male patient with a PMH significant for rectal carcincoma (s/p chemotherapy and radiation; refused surgery) arrives with chief complaint of rectal pain and general malaise for two week duration. He notes urinary and fecal incontinence over this same time period. He also notes intermittent fevers.
The anatomical location of a posterior myocardial infarction makes it's diagnosis not readily apparent. Intimate knowledge of standard and posterior ECG manifestations of posterior myocardial infarctions is crucial to picking up on this potential fatal pathology. This post aims to provide tips for evaluating patients for posterior myocardial infarction.
Beyond mortality, the plague of bacterial meningitis on the body and central nervous system has been well described. Included in post-meningitis neurologic sequelae are sensorineural hearing loss, seizures, and focal neurologic deficits. Early administration of dexamethasone serves to reduce CNS cytokine production and limit the severe inflammation contributing to the development of these long-lasting neurologic effects. Furthermore, appropriate timing and dosing of dexamethasone therapy in these patients is crucial and can be easily overlooked.
