Fever In The Emergency Department We like to see things as binary in the ED, troponins, d-dimers, CTPA they all give yes no answers. We often treat fever in a similar way, fever = infection just like our mothers taught us. But are we any better than a hand on the forehead, can we use temperature…
Infection of the flexor tendon sheaths of the hand, represents a potential surgical emergency, due to these being closed compartments and swelling can result in necrosis. The same does not tend to occur in extensor tendons as they are open compartments. Infections to the flexor tendon sheath usually occur following a penetrating injury to the…
Case: On 1st May 2014 a 6 year old male was brought to a remote clinic in the Papua New Guinea Highlands from a very remote village. In the preceding 3 hours he had experienced “more than 6” episodes of copious black diarrhoea tainted with blood and one episode of bloody, dark vomit. He had…
As many of you who regularly read this blog will know, I have a bit of a thing for TB. I hate it. It offends me. I am frustrated that a disease that was thought to be on its way to eradication a generation ago has fought back and we may soon find…
Aedes albopictus mosquito feeding On 26th April 2013 2 cases of Chikungunya Fever were reported in The Cairns Post (1). The patients involved had both recently returned from Papua New Guinea and the cases are thought to have been imported. “Phew!” I hear you say; “Although it does expand the list of differential diagnoses of…
Case Presentation: During a recent shift as a VMO in an Eastern State Regional ED I was faced with a rarely encountered, clinically important and emerging clinical challenge. Many of you would have noted the increase in media attention to the problem of tuberculosis, and particularly multi-drug resistant TB (MDR TB). 4 recent cases of…
It is sometimes called Erythema Multiforme Major and is a severe skin involvement with bullous skin lesions, more than 2 mucous membrane involvement as well as multisystem involvement.(Picture from Wikipedia) The aetiology is as for erythema multiforme. Clinically the patient may have fevers, arthralgias, headache and diarrhoea. The lesions may begin as macules and progress to bullae,…
