Neutropenic Fever.

Fever is a common presenting complaint among adult or pediatric patients in the emergency department setting. Although fever in healthy individuals does not necessarily indicate severe illness, fever in patients with neutropenia may herald a life-threatening infection. Therefore, prompt recognition of patients with neutropenic fever is imperative. Serious bacterial illness is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality for neutropenic patients. Neutropenic fever should trigger the initiation of a rapid work-up and the administration of empiric systemic antibiotic therapy to attenuate or avoid the progression along the spectrum of sepsis, severe sepsis, septic shock syndrome, and death.

Neutropenic fever.

Fever is a common presenting complaint among adult or pediatric patients in the emergency department setting. Although fever in healthy individuals does not necessarily indicate severe illness, fever in patients with neutropenia may herald a life-threatening infection. Therefore, prompt recognition of patients with neutropenic fever is imperative. Serious bacterial illness is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality for neutropenic patients. Neutropenic fever should trigger the initiation of a rapid work-up and the administration of empiric systemic antibiotic therapy to attenuate or avoid the progression along the spectrum of sepsis, severe sepsis, septic shock syndrome, and death.

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders: knowledge and screening practices of university hospital medical students and residents.

BACKGROUND: Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is the leading cause of preventable intellectual disabilities in the United States and a significant public health issue. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the knowledge and screening practices of pre-clinical medical students and clinical providers on FAS, FASD, and alcohol consumption. METHODS: A short survey sent to medical students and residents on the campus of a large medical school and university hospital. RESULTS: On the survey of clinical providers, 38% of respondents stated they always survey pregnant women about their alcohol consumption, 34% stated they always screen patients planning to get pregnant, and 9% screen women of childbearing age. There were a significant percentage of providers who never screen women. When questioned regarding safe amounts of alcohol consumption during pregnancy, 69% of pre-clinical medical students and 67% of clinical providers stated there is no safe amount of alcohol consumption. Clinical providers were much more likely to correctly select the facial features necessary for the diagnosis (p-value < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Significant differences exist in the knowledge and screening practices of these different healthcare providers and trainees. Future interventions should seek to improve knowledge on FAS, FASD, and alcohol consumption, in order for practitioners to be more consistent with national guidelines and the Surgeon General recommendations.

Typical migraine or ophthalmologic emergency?

We describe the case of a 47-year-old woman who came to the emergency department (ED) complaining of worse than typical migraine headache and blurry vision after recently doubling the dose of topiramate earlier that day. After complete neurologic and ophthalmologic evaluation, she was found to have elevated intraocular pressures and was diagnosed with topiramate-induced bilateral acute angleclosure glaucoma, which is a rare side effect of this commonly prescribed medication. She was treated with timolol, brimonide, and prednisolone drops to reduce intraocular pressure as well as cessation of topiramate and was discharged home. This report briefly discusses the clinical history, appropriate evaluation, differential diagnosis, and approach to secondary acute angle-closure glaucoma in the ED.

Acute hip pain and inability to ambulate: a rare presentation for perirectal abscess.

A patient with acute hip pain out of proportion to physical findings and inability to weight bear despite negative plain films warrants further in-depth evaluation. Correctly diagnosing the cause of hip pain, a common emergency department (ED) complaint, may be a challenge in the geriatric population (Perron A, Miller M, Brady W. Orthopedic pitfalls in the ED: radiographically occult hip fracture. Am J Emerg Med 2002; 20: 234-7; Cannon J, Silvestri S, Munro M. Imaging choices in occult hip fracture. J Emerg Med 2009; 37: 144-52; Kiu A, Khan S. Radiology of acute hip and femoral injuries. Br J Hosp Med (London) 2010; 71: M22-M24; Zacher J, Gursche A. Regional musculoskeletal conditions: hip pain. Best Pract Res Clin Rheumatol 2003; 17: 71-85). A perirectal abscess as a cause of acute hip pain and inability to ambulate, with gluteus muscle inflammation but no evidence for bone or joint infection, has not been described, to the authors' knowledge. An 82-year-old woman with a history of diabetes, previously ambulatory, presented to the ED after being found on her apartment floor by a visiting health aide, complaining of acute pain in her left hip. Pain was exacerbated by palpation and range of motion testing, and she was unable to bear weight. There was no report of fever, rectal or abdominal pain, bleeding, or painful defecation. Plain films were negative for fracture or lytic lesion. Computerized tomography (CT) of the hip and pelvis was then obtained, which was negative for boney abnormality but revealed a 5-cm ischiorectal abscess with inflammation of the adjacent gluteus muscle. This case illustrates the potentially subtle nature of a deep perirectal abscess in an elderly patient. The CT imaging, useful for investigating the possibility of occult femoral neck fracture, was fortuitous in leading to the diagnosis. One must consider the possibility of visceral processes causing referred pain, when evaluating the patient with an acutely painful hip (Perron A, Miller M, Brady W. Orthopedic pitfalls in the ED: radiographically occult hip fracture. Am J Emerg Med 2002; 20: 234-7; Zacher J, Gursche A. Regional musculoskeletal conditions: hip pain. Best Pract Res Clin Rheumatol 2003; 17: 71-85).

The future of emergency medicine.

BACKGROUND: The specialty of emergency medicine (EM) continues to experience a significant workforce shortage in the face of increasing demand for emergency care. SUMMARY: In July 2009, representatives of the leading EM organizations met in Dallas for the Future of Emergency Medicine Summit. Attendees at the Future of Emergency Medicine Summit agreed on the following: 1) Emergency medical care is an essential community service that should be available to all; 2) An insufficient emergency physician workforce also represents a potential threat to patient safety; 3) Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education/American Osteopathic Association (AOA)-accredited EM residency training and American Board of Medical Specialties/AOA EM board certification is the recognized standard for physician providers currently entering a career in emergency care; 4) Physician supply shortages in all fields contribute to-and will continue to contribute to-a situation in which providers with other levels of training may be a necessary part of the workforce for the foreseeable future; 5) A maldistribution of EM residency-trained physicians persists, with few pursuing practice in small hospital or rural settings; 6) Assuring that the public receives high quality emergency care while continuing to produce highly skilled EM specialists through EM training programs is the challenge for EM's future; 7) It is important that all providers of emergency care receive continuing postgraduate education.

The future of emergency medicine.

Physician shortages are being projected for most medical specialties. The specialty of emergency medicine continues to experience a significant workforce shortage in the face of increasing demand for emergency care. The limited supply of emergency physicians, emergency nurses, and other resources is creating an urgent, untenable patient care problem. In July 2009, representatives of the leading emergency medicine organizations met in Dallas, TX, for the Future of Emergency Medicine Summit. This consensus document, agreed to and cowritten by all participating organizations, describes the substantive issues discussed and provides a foundation for the future of the specialty.

Factors affecting atrazine concentration and quantitative determination in chlorinated water.

Although the herbicide atrazine has been reported to not react measurably with free chlorine during drinking water treatment, this work demonstrates that at contact times consistent with drinking water distribution system residence times, a transformation of atrazine can be observed. Some transformation products detected through the use of high performance liquid chromatography-electrospray mass spectrometry are consistent with the formation of N-chloro atrazine. The effects of applied chlorine, pH, and reaction time on the transformation reaction were studied to help understand the practical implications of the transformation on the accurate determination of atrazine in drinking waters. The errors in the determination of atrazine are a function of the type of dechlorinating agent applied during sample preparation and the analytical instrumentation utilized. When a reductive dechlorinating agent, such as sodium sulfite or ascorbic acid is used, the quantification of the atrazine can be inaccurate, ranging from 2-fold at pH 7.5 to 30-fold at pH 6.0. The results suggest HPLC/UV and ammonium chloride quenching may be best for accurate quantification. Hence, the results also appear to have implications for both compliance monitoring and health effects studies that utilize gas chromatography analysis with sodium sulfite or ascorbic acid as the quenching agent.