The penicillin and cephalosporin drug classes include many first line drug options for infectious disease although high rates of self-reported allergies may cause physicians to seek alternative options. In part two of our dive into antibiotics use for infectious disease, listen as Dr. Rachael Duncan, Emergency Medicine Clinical Pharmacist, addresses the need to investigate the…
Read MoreWelcome to EMM’s first Pharmacy Friday where we dive deeper on a certain pharmacological topic as it pertains to emergency medicine. Dr. Rachael Duncan, Emergency Medicine Clinical Pharmacist, joins us today to talk about antibiotics use for infectious disease, specifically fluoroquinolones. Educational Pearls: Levofloxacin used to be relied upon heavily due to its multiple upsides…
Read MoreContributor: Don Stader, MD Educational Pearls: Yersinia Pestis is the bacteria that caused the black plague. It was first discovered to be the cause of the bubonic plague in 1800s in China during the 3rd bubonic plague where 10-20 million people died Causes 3 types of plague: Bubonic plague: characterized by severe swelling of lymph…
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Coronavirus Testing Chief Complaint: SOB HPI: 43 year-old male anesthesiologist presents to the ED with increasing shortness of breath, tachycardia and lethargy. Patient reports alternating positive and negative COVID tests since early March, job related exposure, as well as travel to Belize and twice to Summit County (considered a hotspot for COVID) since early March….
Read MoreContributor: Jared Scott, MD Educational Pearls: Cholera has been responsible for 6 previous global pandemics and currently the world is in the seventh pandemic of cholera, ongoing since 1961. Cholera originated in the Ganges Delta of India and spread worldwide but largely is unseen in the US and other developed countries due to water sanitation…
Read MoreHost: Elizabeth Esty, MD. At this point, with so many of the studies we’ve digested exploring correlations, associations, observational studies and anecdotal reports and speculation, we could subtitle the show: what we don’t know about COVID. And so, today, we’ll look at what we don’t know about Vitamin D and COVID. There have been a number of…
Read MoreHost: Elizabeth Esty, MD. Smoking is known to increase both susceptibility and severity of all manner of colds and pneumonias, so you’d think the world’s 1.1 billion smokers would be at risk in this pandemic of what at first seemed to be a just a respiratory virus. What’s more, tobacco smoking increases risk for COPD,…
Read More*(A shorter and more clinically focused follow up piece to our COVID Digest released on 5/1/20) Contributor: Nick Tsipis, MD Educational Pearls: Case series reported 5 cases of generally young and healthy patients with COVID-19 who presented to the ER with acute stroke Now several case series showing cardiovascular involvement or complications related to COVID-19…
Read MoreHost: Elizabeth Esty, MD In the US, few people receive vaccination for tuberculosis (TB), a disease that hasn’t been a major killer here for many decades. But while we in the US mostly experience TB as a relatively rare but real threat in its multidrug resistant form, particularly in patients with HIV–or in Victorian novels–TB…
Read MoreContributor: Don Stader, MD Educational Pearls: COVID-19 commonly appears as a bilateral patchy infiltrate on chest radiograph, but this is a non-specific finding Sensitivities range from 17-70% for COVID-19 Many other viral pneumonias such as RSV and influenza can have similar findings Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) demonstrates B-lines, water-fall sign, or hepatization of the lung, but…
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