Famous X Ray

A young male with fall in out streched hand.

Ey Lashkar-e- Saheb Zaman

In memory of martyrdom and blood days; the days of sacrifice and bombardment.
"Ey Lashkar-e- Saheb Zaman" by Sadegh Ahangaran.

To note: This was before a military operation. Soldiers were excited by the sound and were ready to do any sacrifice in the way of their motherland.

"Ey Lashkar-e- Saheb Zaman" means "Oh Army of Saheb Zaman"
"Saheb Zaman" itself means "master of time" a name for the twelfth imam of shii Muslims.

photo: basijjahanafrooz.parsiblog.com
music: musiceiranian.ir

Hysterical Patient: Something to Remember

I read this nice, educative post at the centarl line. Its a common error in ED and may occur for every EP.
Please read it.

The Laughing Trauma Patient

What do you think of this happy motorcycle rider?
He was a 26 y/o rider who was ejected from motorcycle in MVA.
His primary survey was normal. He didn't complain of any pain and just complained decrease of bilateral shoulders ROM.
In examination there were both sided mild tendeness over humeral head and decrease of shoulder ROM in all directions bilaterally. N/V was normal.

Even "Puppet Ice Cream" is Sad

Sometime I heard a joke: 'Learn happiness from "Puppet Ice Cream" who always smile despite that bar in his bottom.'

It seems nowadays even "Puppet Ice Cream" is sad.

Puppet Ice Cream: A type of ice cream called "Bastani-e-Aroosaki" Sold by Mihan and maybe some other manufacturer in Iran.
Photo: I am holding ice cream in today ED class. The green blurred one is the lecturer. Ice creams were bought to us by our kind professor DR.Nejati.

Viva Germany & Goodbye Mr. Maradona

Germany knockout Agentina with a dreaming result: 4-0. It seems it is time for Maradona to rest now.

photo: foreign.peacefmonline.com

Where are we going to go?

The poster is in persian: "Kidney for sale O- and A+". It was outside of our hospital.

What did they do in the ED?

I see them in a night shift in our ED.
What did they do in the ED? What do you think?

Nightmare of any Clinical Toxicologist

Aluminium phosphide is an pesticide which now is the leading cause of death from poisoning in Iran. Nowadays in Loghman hospital -where I spend my toxicology course- there are 2-3 aluminium phosphide poisoning daily and unfortunately with a mortality rate of nearly 100 percent. My first encounter with this poison was in Rasht's Razi hospital where I spent my internship 3 years ago and there were same mortality.
Toxicity is known to be due to phophine gas which release from aluminium phosphide when encounter with water. The sign ad symptoms include profound GI symptoms (abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea), agitation, seizure and cardiovascular collapse. The most important lab finding is profound metabolic acidosis which is probably a poor prognostic factor. Patients are surprisingly well and be critically ill just in minutes. The victims have a distinct odor something like decayed rice and bleech together. Vomiting usually is white and often foamy too. Detoriation begins with increased agitation although patient is completely alert, patient usually tell the physician that he/she feels the death and plea the doctor to help him/her. Metabolic acidosis become worse and worse despite great effort to its correction and a resistant cardiogenc shock develops. In EKG there are at least two findings: QRS complexes become wide and QT intervals increase. Patients suddenly develop a deadly ventricular dysrythmia usually torsade points or vf and sometimes pulseless vt; and this is the time when death arrives.

Gastric lavage with N/S or water is somewhat contraindicated and lavage is done with sodium bicarbonate and potassium permanganate. Charcoal probably has no benefit and if containing water has harm too. Some clinicians gavage mineral or natural oil to patients. The corner stone of management is correction of metabolic acidosis with as much sodium bicarbonate as possible. Therapies such calcium gluconate, magnesium sulfate, n-acetyl cystein are recommended but none of them are effective in clinic. For correction of shock norepinephrine is superior to dopamine which usually fail to correct shock, however in most cases a combination of these two vasopressors are recommended. Ventricular dysrhythmias are refractory to defibrillation and any drug, consider over drive pacing for torsades de pointes . Early intubation of patients seems reasonable before profound shock make it difficult to RSI patient. Early intubation has the benefit to use hyperventilation for acidosis correction.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The Good

Yesterday, we had an osce as a part of our annual evaluation. The exam had 12 stations (2 of them were rest). Stations included Research, ATLS, ACLS, Neurological Examination, EKGs, Slides (2 stations), Seizure, Drug Seeker Patient and Airway Management. Althogh the exam designing was good; but it seems the last year exam was better in content, designing and execution. The Good for the exam was its joint execution between our ED and Iran's.

 The Bad

The exam was a real pity for me. I did Bad in nearly all stations and the worst was EKGs.

The Ugly

It seems cheating is something in our blood and we can't live without it. In abstract some of us cheated yesterday. I think there were nothing more ugly than this.

* Pics: Corporate America's Good, Bad and the Ugly