Introducing the LITFL Toxicology Library
Have you ever wondered what the difference is between a toxin and a toxicant? What is poisonous and what is venomous? What is a normal urinary pH, and what on earth has uncoupling of oxidative phosphorylation got to do with my emergency department?
The Toxicology Library is being built to assist with a plethora of questions including what is the best cocktail to put in your elephant gun at 3am when your drug addled patient steam rolls through your triage barrier.
Toxicology Library resources
- Tox Tutes – 10-30 minute podcasts with toxicologists from around the globe, discussing how to manage the poisoned patient from the initial resuscitation to ongoing care on ICU.
- Toxicology BSCC – tutorials covering the Basic Science in Clinical Context with pharmacology basics for the part 1 exam and also the clinical science behind drug actions and therapy concepts.
- Tox Conundrums -Want to jump in and test your brain, here is the list of toxicology conundrums to pit your wits against.
- Toxicology basics: How to manage the poisoned patient, snake bite, plants, toxidromes and interpretation of the toxic VBG and ECG.
- Toxicant: The umbrella term for a toxic substance. However, in popular usage it denotes substances produced by humans e.g. cocaine; in contrast to toxins, which are toxicants produced naturally by a living organism.
- Antidotes: Chemical management for ingested toxicants and toxins.
- Toxins: (envenomings) – naturally produced toxicants produced within living cells or organisms. They are capable of causing disease on contact with or absorption by body tissues.
- Anti-venom: Need some black or brown antivenom or just want to see what the debate about redback spider antivenom is all about.
Toxicology Framework
No discussion about managing the poisoned patient would be complete without a framework, listen to our quick tox tute on resus below or for more details watch the tutorials covering RRSIDEAD.
- Resuscitation
- Risk Assessment
- Supportive Care
- Investigations
- Decontamination
- Enhanced Elimination
- Antidotes
- Disposition
Tox Tute VIDEO – Toxicology Resuscitation
Tox Tute VIDEO – Toxicology Risk Assessment
Tox Tute VIDEO – Toxicology RRSIDEAD
Additional Resources
Toxicology Library
BASICS
Dr Neil Long BMBS FACEM FRCEM FRCPC. Emergency Physician at Kelowna hospital, British Columbia. Loves the misery of alpine climbing and working in austere environments (namely tertiary trauma centres). Supporter of FOAMed, lifelong education and trying to find that elusive peak performance.