Drs. Teresa Wu and Brady Pregerson (in the current issue of EPMonthly) once again discuss an interesting case that is more than meets the eye, and thankfully they continue their humorous sarcasm and start the case by speaking of an average day in our emergency departments these days: “This is the third time this week that you have had to close your ED. All of the beds in the hospital are full, and your ED is bulging at the seams with sick patients that aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. You are holding 10 admissions at the present moment, and the hallways are lined with patients calling “doctor” every time you walk by. As much as you hate doing so, you concede to the request to close to ambulance traffic and then walk briskly over to the chart rack to see what you can do to help improve the current situation. Your eager intern is right on your heels and says he has a new patient to present to you. “This should be a really simple case,” he spurts out. You raise your eyebrows and bite your tongue.”……
They (meaning, the intern) describe a case of a 40 year old female who has had what seems like an upper respiratory infection for 4 weeks, that’s just not going away, and now with sharp chest pain worse when coughing. While going to evaluate the patient, they give one of the best pearls that all residents should know: ““Teaching point number one is conservation of energy. One of the best ways to be efficient is to ensure that you minimize the amount of time wasted. If you might need the ultrasound machine, take it with you so you don’t have to walk back out of the room to go get it.” They then proceed to perform the beginnings of the RADIUS study, which highlights Echo, thoracic and IVC ultrasound for the short of breath/dyspneic patient. The patient complains of pain when lying back, which causes the spide-y sense to go up and be confirmed when seeing the below picture on the echo:
To read more on the case and their great clinical pearls click here to get to EPMonthly’s online site.
To read a prior post emphasizing the need to perform an ultrasound for any presumed or confirmed pericarditis by going through a another case… and some studies, click here.
SonoSpot: Topics in Bedside Ultrasound 