Tactical Medicine News Blog

Have you ever seen a child in your emergency department with a fever - he asks sarcastically? At the ginormous community hospital where I work, we see about 25,000 kids each year in our ED and about half of them present with fever. Yes, there still exists fever phobia in our society, which brings hoards of worried parents into the ED with their febrile kids. For most of these kids it's relatively straight forward: Most kids with fever have clinical evidence of an identifiable source of infection – a viral respiratory infection, acute otitis media, gastro, or a viral exanthem. However, about 20% have Fever Without a Source despite your thorough history and physical exam. A small but significant number of this 20% without an identifiable source of fever will have an occult bacterial infection - UTI, bacteremia, pneumonia, or even the dreaded early bacterial meningitis. These are all defined as Serious Bacterial Infections (SBI), with occult UTI being the most common SBI especially in children under the age of 2 years. In the old days we used to do a full septic work-up including LP for all infants under the age of 3 months, but thankfully, times have changed in the post-Hib and pneumoccocal vaccine age, and we aren’t quite so aggressive any more with our work-ups. Nonetheless, it's still controversial as to which kids need a full septic workup, which kids need a partial septic workup, which kids need just a urine dip and which kids need little except to reassure the parents. In this episode, with the help of Dr. Sarah Reid and Dr. Gina Neto from the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, we will elucidate how to deal with fever phobia, when a rectal temp is necessary, how to pick out the kids with fever that we need to worry about, how to work up kids with fever depending on their age, risk factors and clinical picture, who needs a urinalysis, who needs a CXR, who needs blood cultures and who needs an LP, and much more.... The post Episode 48 – Pediatric Fever Without A Source appeared first on Emergency Medicine Cases.

Have you ever seen a child in your emergency department with a fever - he asks sarcastically? At the ginormous community hospital where I work, we see about 25,000 kids each year in our ED and about half of them present with fever. Yes, there still exists fever phobia in our society, which brings hoards of worried parents into the ED with their febrile kids. For most of these kids it's relatively straight forward: Most kids with fever have clinical evidence of an identifiable source of infection – a viral respiratory infection, acute otitis media, gastro, or a viral exanthem. However, about 20% have Fever Without a Source despite your thorough history and physical exam. A small but significant number of this 20% without an identifiable source of fever will have an occult bacterial infection - UTI, bacteremia, pneumonia, or even the dreaded early bacterial meningitis. These are all defined as Serious Bacterial Infections (SBI), with occult UTI being the most common SBI especially in children under the age of 2 years. In the old days we used to do a full septic work-up including LP for all infants under the age of 3 months, but thankfully, times have changed in the post-Hib and pneumoccocal vaccine age, and we aren’t quite so aggressive any more with our work-ups. Nonetheless, it's still controversial as to which kids need a full septic workup, which kids need a partial septic workup, which kids need just a urine dip and which kids need little except to reassure the parents. In this episode, with the help of Dr. Sarah Reid and Dr. Gina Neto from the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, we will elucidate how to deal with fever phobia, when a rectal temp is necessary, how to pick out the kids with fever that we need to worry about, how to work up kids with fever depending on their age, risk factors and clinical picture, who needs a urinalysis, who needs a CXR, who needs blood cultures and who needs an LP, and much more.... The post Episode 48 – Pediatric Fever Without A Source appeared first on Emergency Medicine Cases.

Case: A pre-teen girl, living in central California, recently started on fluconazole, now presenting with a bilateral leg rash. What is your diagnosis? Click on the image for a larger view.

A 16-year-old football player presents to the emergency department directly from a game. He was tackled, falling onto his right shoulder. The patient is complaining of right-sided chest pain. On exam, there is tenderness over the right sternoclavicular joint (SCJ) with a prominent medial clavicle. Range of motion is limited in the right arm. What diagnostic studies need to be performed? What treatment is warranted in the emergency department?

As emergency physicians, we are constantly on the look out for elevated blood pressures and the potential devastating consequences. We are concerned about intracranial bleeds and acute pulmonary edema from heart failure. But what about the patient that comes in with high blood pressures, yet has no symptoms? Do we need to treat the number or the patient? In this post we will tackle this clinical dilemma of elevated asymptomatic hypertension: To treat or not to treat?