Wardround 6i6

Welcome back and Happy New year.

How empty was the wardround without its two minute tutorials? Well I have tasted the laziness for long enough, so next week we will be on track with tutorials themed around GI bleeding.

Epidemiology
Assessment (DK)
Scoring (GAJ)
Treatment (AS)
Prognosis (MJM)

Remember to make the talks concise and precise. Avoid speaking at twice the normal rate. Visual aids will attract extra points.

It has only just occurred to me that this is another ID topic (arrgh...Dr J must know that I am squirming. They will always be campylobacter to me).

The main discussion topic this week was central venous catheter related sepsis. There are a number of excellent guidelines summarising management of this problem. For example Guidelines for the Management of Intravascular Catheter–Related Infections. Clin Infect Dis. 2001 May 1;32(9):1249-72. Leonard A. Mermel, et al.

There will be afternoon tutorials this month about central lines so there will be chance to discuss this in more detail. There will be a handout with the tutorials.

Interesting cases discussed this week:
Conservative management of bowel perforation: the published mortality figures are surprisingly good.
Diarrhoea in HIV disease. (Can you name 10 AIDS defining disorders? I will be impressed if someone comes up with a mnemonic for the lot).
Complicated PUO (we really must do PUO as a topic one week....as much as it pains me to do yet more ID).
Acute tubular necrosis read more.

The reading for next week is The Midnight Meal, from the collection of essays, The Midnight Meal and Other Essays about Doctors, Patients, and Medicine by Jerome Lowenstein. I will leave it on the ward. Estimated reading time is 5 minutes, but thinking time should be much longer.

MJM