Posts in Community EM
At The Bedside

Read the HPI and think about the questions on the title slide before watching the video. Put yourself at the bedside of this patient and form your own diagnostic and management plan. Designed to help you actually rehearse what you’re going to say and do at the bedside of a sick patient, keep tuning in each week for the same format but new and high yield Emergency Medicine pearls…

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At The Bedside

Read the HPI and think about the questions on the title slide before watching the video. Put yourself at the bedside of this patient and form your own diagnostic and management plan. Designed to help you actually rehearse what you’re going to say and do at the bedside of a sick patient, keep tuning in each week for the same format but new and high yield Emergency Medicine pearls…

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EKG Case Report

A 57-year-old man presents to the emergency department in the middle of the night complaining of chest pain that woke him up three hours ago. He states that he feels tightness and a burning sensation across both sides of his chest, with intermittent sharp pains that he rates as an 8/10. He also reports that both of his arms are numb and tingling, and the right side of his face has been twitching. He has not been able to go back to sleep because he is so uncomfortable…

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An Uncommon Cause of Shortness of Breath in the Emergency department: Acute Mitral Regurgitation

By: Russell Prichard MD and Melanie Lippman MD

CASE

The patient is a 52 year-old female with a past medical history of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, hypothyroidism, and a 2 pack a day smoking history who presented to the emergency department in respiratory distress.

When EMS arrived to the patient’s home, she was hypoxemic with a pulse oximetry reading of 70s on room air and hypotensive with systolic blood pressures in the 80s. She was placed on nasal cannula with improvement in her saturations and she was given aspirin, fentanyl, and nitroglycerin without relief.

Upon arrival her vitals were significant for respiratory rate of 34, pulse oximetry of 98% on 6L NC. She was noted to be in acute distress.

The patient was placed on positive pressure ventilation via BiPAP and broad blood work, chest X-ray and electrocardiogram (ECG) were obtained.

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Herpes Encephalitis

A 70 year-old male, with a past medical history of hypertension, gastroesophageal reflux disease, chronic lymphocytic leukemia on Ibrutinib, and coronary artery disease, presented with right hand weakness since waking that morning. He reported that he felt the strength of his grip was not at baseline, and his wife also noted that, while eating breakfast, the patient dropped his bagel, a dish towel, and his utensils. His last known well was 10:00 PM the night before, although he also endorsed two weeks of persistent right hand numbness and burning paresthesias in his right hand. He denied headache, fever/chills, chest/back/abdominal pain, nausea/vomiting, urinary symptoms, or diarrhea, as well as any visual symptoms, speech changes, or gait problems…

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