The LITFL Critical Care Compendium is a comprehensive collection of pages concisely covering the core topics and controversies of critical care.
OVERVIEW microscopy and culture is useful in community acquired diarrhoeal syndromes (not useful otherwise) in-hospital:— blood = ischaemic bowel or surgical cause— diarrhoea = rule out Clostridium difficile infection MICROSCOPY parasites, cysts, ova: giardia, cryptosporidium, blastocystis red and white cells:…
Synovial fluid analysis: - appearance; WCC; RBC; microscopy + culture; protein; LDH; glucose; crystals
Ultrasound in Critical Care: many roles; increasing applicability in emergency medicine and ICU
CCC overview of urinalysis
Bleeding time
Bone Marrow Biopsy: Confirm diagnosis. Allows therapy to be targeted. Needs to be done only, if the answer cannot be seen from peripheral blood already.
Standard precautions are work practices that provide a first-line approach to infection prevention in the healthcare environment.
Clinicians must be able to critically appraise clinical trials to determine their internal validity. Trials should adhere to the CONSORT statement (CONsolidated Standards of Reporting Trials)
Causes of Acute Pulmonary Hypertension
Pleural Tap: Thoracocentesis; Diagnostic - determine the cause of pleural effusion. Therapeutic - remove excess pleural fluid to assist respiration and provide symptomatic relief.
Massive GI hemorrhage presents multiple challenges during intubation: obscured view of vocal cords; risk of aspiration; risk of haemorrhagic shock and haemodynamic instability; risk to staff from contact with body fluids