Category Procedures / Tips

Recurrent Abdominal Pain

Like Sisyphus, you may feel that you are continually pushing a diagnostic boulder up a mountain only to watch it roll back down.  Certainly, some diagnoses offer less of an incline to overcome; however, others, like Chronic Recurrent Abdominal Pain (CRAP),…

Cerebral Edema and Diabetic Ketoacidosis

  Cerebral edema is the most feared emergent complication of pediatric diabetic ketoacidosis.  Fortunately, it is relatively rare, but the rarity can lead to some confusion when it comes to its management.  We recently discussed the use of mannitol and…

Neonatal Analgesia

In general, I try to do things that make my life easier.  Selfish or Brilliant? I’ll let you decide.  But on occasion, choices that we think should make things easier actually can be counterproductive.  A great example of this is…

Oral Rehydration Therapy is Faster

Obviously dehydration is a very significant condition, particularly in the pediatric population, so much so that several Morsels have been dedicated to the topic (ex, ORT, Vomiting vs Diarrhea, Probiotics, Alternatives to IV Fluids). Yet, often I still hear that…

Serum Sickness

This little Morsel stems from a intellectually fun conversation with Dr. Modisett (for those of you overseas, Dr. Modisett is one of our brilliant and illustrious Chief Residents at Carolinas – yes, I am spoiled).  This is another great reason…

Tourniquet Syndrome

Kids, certainly, love to get themselves into difficult scenarios. We’ve all seen funny photos of kids’ heads wedged between the spindles of a bannister.  Occasionally, kids will present to the ED having placed themselves in unusual and unfortunate predicaments (certainly,…

Vitamin K Deficiency

On several occasions we have discussed significant gastrointestinal conditions that may present in the young child (Intussusception, Malrotation, Necrotizing Enterocolitis, and even Crohn’s Disease).  These conditions may present with blood being noticed in the stool (Meckel’s Diverticulum would also come…