Practice Management
Urgent message: Concern over the potential spread of COVID-19 may (or may not) have affected the timeliness with which parents chose to present with children who had symptoms concerning for acute otitis media, thereby throwing the concept of “delayed” antibiotic prescribing into question. Emily J. Montgomery, MD; Brian R. Lee, PhD, MPH; Amanda Montalbano, MD, MPH; Amanda Nedved, MD Citation: Montgomery RJ, Lee BR, Montalbano A, Nedved A. Time to presentation for acute otitis media …
Read MoreChamber Abnormalities: Pathologic or Not? A 27-year-old male with no reported medical history presents with chest pain. He relays several weeks of intermittent symptoms which started after lifting heavy boxes. The pain is sharp, located in the mid-chest and is otherwise non-tearing, non-pleuritic, non-positional and not associated with exertion. On examination, the patient is in no acute distress, and appears lean without cachexia or wasting. The pain is reproduced with shoulder extension. It resolves with …
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Urgent message: Failure to consider subtleties and the context in which a patient presents can lead to insufficient differential diagnoses and, therefore, mis- or missed diagnoses that leave the patient at risk for poor outcomes and the provider at risk for litigation. Michael Weinstock, MD and Charles Pilcher, MD Back pain is usually back pain, whether it’s from a muscular strain or another self-limiting, non-serious cause. But there is potential danger lurking below the surface, …
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The patient is a 68-year-old woman who presents with a rash she says developed on her trunk over a span of several weeks. On examination, there were multiple confluent, orange-red plaques on the trunk and arms with “islands of sparing” within them. The rash had a primarily truncal distribution and was pruritic. She was feeling well otherwise. View the image and consider what your next steps and diagnosis would be. Resolution of the case is …
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The patient is a 15-year-old boy who presents to urgent care with a painful medial right elbow he and his parents attribute to pitching in a baseball game earlier in the day. View the images taken and consider what your diagnosis and next steps would be. Resolution of the case is described on the next page.
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Joshua Russell, MD, MSc, FCUCM, FACEP A colleague, Dr. Mitchell we’ll call him, told me about a PA that he was supervising recently who made a great catch in a patient with a swollen, blue finger: Achenbach syndrome. When the PA presented the presumptive diagnosis, Dr. Mitchell, unfamiliar with the condition, had to Google it before seeing the patient. Our PA was right, though. The patient walked out of clinic, happy to have a benign …
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Urgent message: It is common for transgender patients to have a history of poor experiences with healthcare providers. As such, they may be less likely to have an ongoing clinical relationship with a primary care provider, making urgent care a likely destination when a need arises. Familiarity with issues facing adolescent transgender patients, in particular, can benefit both the provider and the patient. Timothy McGinnis and Emily Montgomery, MD THE CASE A 15-year-old transgender male …
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The patient is a 36-year-old male with a history of tobacco and alcohol use who presents to urgent care with sudden-onset substernal chest pain and shortness of breath that began 1 hour prior to arrival. View the ECG taken and consider what your diagnosis and next steps would be. Resolution of the case is described on the next page.
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The patient is a 43-year-old male who presents with a painful collection of pus near his fingernail. He reported that it had developed over the past day. On examination, a large, yellow-green superficial pus collection was seen at the proximal nail fold with surrounding erythema and edema. The patient mentioned that he had a home renovation business and that it was common for him to experience mild injuries such as splinters on his hands. The …
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The patient is a 47-year-old male who presents with a primary complaint of right ankle pain after a pick-up game of basketball. He reports he twisted his ankle when he landed on another player’s foot. View the images taken and consider what your diagnosis and next steps would be. Resolution of the case is described on the next page.
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