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practice updates

What’s that Rash? An approach to dangerous rashes based on morphology

A wide range of benign and dangerous pathology can present with a rash. It is wise to develop a systematic approach to rashes in the ED, one that helps you recognize the deadly causes of rash while narrowing the differential diagnosis. Any patient with a fever plus a rash could potentially have one of many deadly diseases. In order to narrow it down further, we are going to use a morphology-based approach.

clinical cases

Subtle ECG Findings in ACS: Part III Benign Early Repolarization vs. Anterior STEMI

Welcome to the third blog post in a series on subtle ECG findings in ACS. This post about mimics: benign early repolarization (BER) and the anterior STEMI. Each of these can mimic the other. The problem is that one of these diagnoses is deadly and the other is a normal variant.

clinical cases

Subtle ECG findings in ACS: Part II Hyperacute T-Waves

What if you could identify a patient with complete coronary vessel occlusion almost immediately after it occurs, before the ST segments begin to elevate? What if you could pick up the very subtle, early MI? We know that early recognition and intervention improves outcomes in patients with coronary artery occlusion. Sometimes patients presenting with ACS are obvious. Sometimes it seems that the patient has read the textbook. However, more often than not, patients are not obvious, especially in the early stages of ACS. That is why we are concerning ourselves with subtlety.