Category Medical Specialty

hard & soft…

The Case. A 22 year old male is retrieved to ED after a nasty workplace accident where he was pinned between a truck and wayward forklift. He had sustained injuries to his head/face, upper thorax and perineum, however our most…

a pulmonary pummelling…

The Case. This patient has been in your ED for over 24 hours waiting for a CCU bed. He presented with vomiting and syncope, but acquired left sided rib fractures during his collapse. He has been comfortable for most of…

a poison puzzler…

the case. 23 year old female is bought to ED by her family after an intentional overdose of ~ 100 ‘diet tablets’ which she ingested 1.5-2 hours earlier.

Literary-Medicine-340

The Hypocritic Corpus

As I stand over this: Screaming human? Patchwork Scarred Scared Amphetamine fuelled Pulsing rage, With a syringe of midazolam -fantazaslam! Invoking the Mental Health Act, As if I believe in it -The gospel according to psychiatry I realise this does…

iatrogenic acceleration…

The Case. A 46 year old restrained passenger in a high-speed MVA rolls into the resus bay. She is intubated & sedated [easily ventilated & oxygenated, no evidence of chest trauma], persistently tachycardic @ 160/min with a systolic BP of…

probe prevents probe…

Recently, a colleague of mine was wanting to perform a diagnostic tap on a patient with cough, fever and a CXR suggesting a left sided pleural effusion…. I was asked to perform a bedside USS to mark out the safest…

a troublesome tachycardia

The Case. An 11 year old boy is bought to ED by his mother on a busy weekday evening. Mum reports that he has been ‘a little bit off’ over the past 24 hours, in particular he’s not keeping down…

big black spider…

The Case. A sunny Saturday morning in Sydney and your 56 year old patient was just outside doing some gardening when they feel a rather sharp bite on their right hand (on webspace between thumb and index finger). He arrives…

slowly, slowly…

Case: 76 year old female, presents with lightheadedness and lethargy. She is complaining of mid-scapular pain & is syncopal at triage. She has cold hands & clammy skin. Systolic BP 70 mmHg. Crackles to mid-zones of her chest. Distended JVP.…

observing the occult…

The case: A motorcyclist is minding his own business, stationary at a set of lights and is rear-ended by a car at ~60-70km He is thrown 10 meters or so from his bike and lands on his left side. Remarkably…

a tonne of bricks…

… well it wasn’t really a tonne; more like a dozen or so individual bricks falling from a height of 3-4 metres that peppered and glanced a patient I saw 48 hours ago. Whilst he presented as a ‘trauma’ and…