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Conjunctivitis
Bread & Butter EM Guest User Bread & Butter EM Guest User

Conjunctivitis

It's been a busy night in the SRU.  You've already sent two traumas to the OR, given tPA to an acute stroke, and sent a post-arrest patient up to the MICU.  As you walk back to your computer to finally take a sip of now cold coffee, you notice there's a new patient in A2.  The chief complaint, conjunctivitis.  You sigh as you try to recall the differential for the red eye.  You think to yourself, I wish they actually covered eyes in medical school.  Read on to learn how to care majorly about a “minor” complaint.  And no, all is not solved by some antibiotic drops.   

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Take My Breath Away! Evaluation of Shortness of Breath in the ED
Bread & Butter EM Jeffery Hill, MD M.Ed Bread & Butter EM Jeffery Hill, MD M.Ed

Take My Breath Away! Evaluation of Shortness of Breath in the ED

There are many chief complaints in the emergency department that can be less than satisfying (*cough* abdominal pain *cough*).  Sometimes such patients end up having a completely benign examination, no significant risk factors found on history, and an encounter that leaves you shrugging your shoulders and telling the patient “bellies will do that sometimes, we don’t always find out why.”

Of course, this is all anecdotal, but the chief complaint on this month’s episode seems to have a more consistent presence of pathology with a wide range of severity.  With such heterogeneous pathophysiology we turn to the mind of Dr. Stewart Wright to discuss the initial approach to the patient with shortness of breath (SOB)...

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