A 44 yo male who works as a construction worker presents with 2 days of lower back pain. Having seen literally hundreds of cases of benign musculoskeletal pain in the last year, you are pretty sure you can handle one more. But is there danger lurking behind this well appearing patient with normal vitals? Well, yes of course. Otherwise we wouldn't be covering it on EM Daily....
Read moreSubmitted by Richard Byrne, MD
A patient comes into the ED with a high fever, shortness of breath, mild headache, diarrhea, and general malaise. It’s 2021… so naturally, the ‘COVID alarms’ start sounding in our heads. But if it were that simple, we probably wouldn't be posting about it, would we?
Read moreSubmitted by Abagayle Renko M.D.
The sudden death CT may help identify the cause of an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
Read moreSubmitted by Lars-Kristofer Peterson, MD
A 27 yo M with a PMHx of osteosarcoma s/p R hip disarticulation and numerous lung metastases s/p L upper lobe wedge resection (1 year prior) presents to ED with DOE and "abnormal findings on outpatient CT scan." On ED arrival he is tachycardic w/ HR 135, RR is 18 and SpO2 is 93% on RA.
Read moreSubmitted by Eric Chavis, MD
A 44 yo male presents complaining of abdominal pain. As your basic differential for abdominal pain swirls through your head, you are a bit surprised to walk in the room and see the patient sitting upright, vomiting bright red blood all over himself. Time to shift gears doc.....
Read moreSubmitted by Zach Athing M.D.
A 4 year old boy, otherwise healthy, is rushed into the emergency room by his mom because she thinks he had a seizure. His mom states he was sitting on the ground playing a game on his iPad when he suddenly started having jerking movements of his entire body that eventually self resolved after around 2 minutes. He has never had a seizure before. He is up to date on vaccines and had an unremarkable birth history.
On exam, the child is not actively seizing at this time, he just seems slightly drowsy and confused. It is noted that he is febrile to 38.2 C, otherwise vitals are stable. The rest of the exam is nonfocal.
What should you be thinking about? What are your next steps?
Submitted by Katherine Billings MD
The patient with life-threatening asthma requires a cool head and swift action. This video disucsses the essentials to manage these critically ill patients.
Watch here
Read moreSubmitted by Haney Mallemat, MD
In the absence of overt dental infection or abscess, do antibiotics decrease dental pain or its potential complications?
Read moreSubmitted by Abagayle Renko M.D.