Category Archives: Uncategorized

Why do patients with methemoglobinemia have an oxygen saturation fixed at 85%? Here’s a case for you: an older patient with lung cancer undergoes an awake intubation with benzocaine. They then experience hypoxemia which stays fixed at 85% despite receiving 100% FiO2 oxygen. The care team does an ABG, which yields chocolate-colored blood with aContinue reading “Episode 106- Pulse Check: Methemoglobin”

Why does Pseudomonas smell like grapes? In our last episode, we discussed that most terrifying of organisms, Pseudomonas Aeruginosa (PA), and its role in diabetic foot infections. In this episode, we’ll be exploring a more benign side of PA. If you’ve ever worked with PA in a lab or taken care of a patient withContinue reading “105 – The Grapes of Pseudomonas’ Wrath”

Why do we worry about Pseudomonas in diabetic foot infections? One of the age-old challenges of medicine is deciding which infections to suspect in which patients based on which risk factors. Everything from whether a patient has an artificial joint to if their cat recently scratched them can be meaningful when making a diagnosis. SomeContinue reading “Episode 104 – A Pseudo- truth?”

Why don’t we administer insulin orally? In inpatient medicine, a phrase one often hears is “transition to PO.” Medications that start out as injections or infusions – antibiotics, steroids, anticoagulants – are switched to an oral equivalent as soon as possible. There’s one drug, though, which we never talk about taking in pill form. InsulinContinue reading “Episode 103 – Oral Argument”

Why do lobsters age more slowly than we do? We want to tell you a story about George … the lobster. George was caught off the coast of Newfoundland in 2009, weighing a whopping 20lbs (for comparison, most of the lobsters you’d eat in a restaurant weight between 1-5lbs). He ended up in the tankContinue reading “Episode 102 – Long Lives the Lobster”