Improving Oxygenation in ARDS
Refractory hypoxia, leading to dysoxia at the cellular level, can be difficult to manage in severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)
Gut under pressure
A patient is day 1 post-laparotomy. his abdomen feels tight and his urine output has dropped off... Can you save the day in this gastrointestinal gutwrencher?
Snookered
You are assessing a 37 year old male in the emergency department. He appears to be in discomfort and states that he fell asleep at a party and thinks ‘someone put something up his back passage while he was out of it’.
Rapid Response Systems
In Australia, a Rapid Response System (RRS) is a hospital-wide system to recognise and respond to the deteriorating patient is a requirement as set out in Standard 9 of the National Safety and Quality Healthcare Standards.
Clinical Governance
Clinical governance is “a framework through which organisations are accountable for continuously improving the quality of their services and safeguarding high standards of care by creating an environment in which excellence in clinical care will flourish.”
A Lesson in History
A man, originally from Somalia, is jaundiced and has abnormal LFTs. Can you work out the cause?
Gut ache or Gordian knot?
A 29 year-old man has recurrent abdominal pain. Can you make the diagnosis where others have failed? Is this a Gordian knot?
Appendagitis
A 50 year-old man presented to the ED with sharp abdominal pain localised to his left lower quadrant.
Köbner (Koebner) phenomenon
Description Köbner (Koebner) phenomenon – the appearance of isomorphic lesions following local trauma in skin areas that were not previously involved with the skin condition. That is, when patients with a cutaneous disease are stressed by exgternal cutaneous stimuli such…
Heinrich Köbner
Heinrich Köbner (1838 – 1904) was a German dermatologist. Eponym: Koebner phenomenon; Köbner syndrome (Epidermolysis bullosa simplex)
Xeroderma pigmentosum
Xeroderma pigmentosum (XP): rare autosomal recessive disorder of DNA repair characterised by photosensitivity, progressive pigmentary change, and an increased incidence of ultraviolet (UV)-induced skin and mucous membrane cancers.
Ciprofloxacin
Ciprofloxacin: quinolone antibiotic; inhibition of enzymes required for bacterial DNA replication, transcription, repair and recombination.