A Case Series of Lyme Carditis with Complete Heart Block

Case 1 A 25-year-old Caucasian male with a history of a benign functional heart murmur presented to the emergency department for evaluation of 10 days of dyspnea with minimal exertion, such as walking a few blocks or climbing a flight of steps. Dyspnea was accompanied by moderate, dull, left-sided chest pain, which had been progressively worsening over the previous 3-5 days. The symptoms initially occurred only with exertion, but progressed to last 30-45 minutes after discontinuation of activity. He also noticed palpitations during these episodes, but did not try any remedies for his symptoms. Of note, two weeks prior to presentation, the patient had been camping in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia for four days. During that trip, he sustained over 30 mosquito bites, but never noticed any tick bites or rashes. He also traveled to Brazil five months ago, during which time he took malaria prophylaxis

Quality improvement in the era of boarding and burnout: A postpandemic blueprint.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to unprecedented challenges to healthcare quality in the emergency department, including directly impacting quality metrics and worsening barriers to the quality improvement process such as burnout, staff turnover, and boarding. We aimed to develop a blueprint for postpandemic quality improvement to address these specific barriers, focused on prioritizing frontline staff engagement from idea generation to implementation and assessment. Drawing from teamwork literature, we constructed a process that emphasized egalitarian conversations, psychological safety, and creating an environment where staff could feel heard at every step of the process. We applied this blueprint to improving rates of patients who leave without being seen and achieved a four percentage point reduction (9% vs. 5%, p < 0.001), with high rates of staff satisfaction with the process. We conclude that while postpandemic quality improvement presents significant challenges, we can rise to meet those challenges by adapting existing quality improvement processes to increase frontline staff engagement

From the Editors

We are proud to publish the 14th issue of the Jefferson Medicine Forum. The editorial staff would like to acknowledge the support of Dr. Diemer in producing this year’s forum. We appreciate your guidance and support in bringing this issue to print. Over the years, the Medicine Forum has provided a unique opportunity for our housestaff and medical students to not only share scholarly activities, but also to pursue their interests outside of the medical field. This year, we are proud to announce the addition of medical application reviews as well as an opinion piece on the use of opiates in primary care – a controversial topic that often leads to heated debates. We have also been fortunate enough to include interesting travel experiences, unique case reports, and exciting review articles, along with some breathtaking photography and original cartoon

Smartphone App Reviews

Smartphone App Reviews for Doximity, ECG Source, Heart Failure Trails, QX Calculate

Limitations of the Perioperative Cardiovascular Evaluation for Assessing Coronary Artery Disease: A Case Report

INTRODUCTION The American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA) publ ished pre-operative risk stratification guidelines in 2014. These guidelines have routinely been used by physicians to pre-operatively risk stratify patients. In this case report, a patient was found to have multi-vessel coronary artery disease post-operatively in the setting of unremarkable cardiac work-up preoperatively. This case highlights a limitation of the 2014 ACC/AHA guidelines

The 2016 Academic Emergency Medicine Consensus Conference, Shared Decision Making in the Emergency Department: Development of a Policy-relevant Patient-centered Research Agenda Diagnostic Testing Breakout Session Report.

Diagnostic testing is an integral component of patient evaluation in the emergency department (ED). Emergency clinicians frequently use diagnostic testing to more confidently exclude worst-case diagnoses rather than to determine the most likely etiology for a presenting complaint. Increased utilization of diagnostic testing has not been associated with reductions in disease-related mortality but has led to increased overall healthcare costs and other unintended consequences (e.g., incidental findings requiring further workup, unnecessary exposure to ionizing radiation or potentially nephrotoxic contrast). Shared decision making (SDM) presents an opportunity for clinicians to discuss the benefits and harms associated with diagnostic testing with patients to more closely tailor testing to patient risk. This article introduces the challenges and opportunities associated with incorporating SDM into emergency care by summarizing the conclusions of the diagnostic testing group at the 2016 Academic Emergency Medicine Consensus Conference on SDM. Three primary domains emerged: 1) characteristics of a condition or test appropriate for SDM, 2) critical elements of and potential barriers to SDM discussions on diagnostic testing, and 3) financial aspects of SDM applied to diagnostic testing. The most critical research questions to improve engagement of patients in their acute care diagnostic decisions were determined by consensus

Organic Farming In Banana And Guava

India is the second largest producer of fruits in the world. With the increasing population, the cultivable land resource is shrinking day to day. Green Revolution in the post- independence era has shown path to developing countries for self- sufficiency in food but sustaining agricultural production against the finite natural resource base demands has shifted from the “resource degrading” chemical agriculture to a “resource protective” biological or organic farming. The major component of organic farming is: manures, green manures, intercropping, mulching, vermiculture biotechnology, bio fertilizers, biodynamic farming, bio control etc. Application of bio-fertilizer was more effective than organic manures in enhancing fruit growth parameters. When bio-fertilizer was grouped together in Red Fleshed guava and banana cv. grand nine, P-solubilizers were found to have more beneficial influence on fruit physico- chemical characteristics than that of N-fixers

Secondary membranous nephropathy associated with guillain-barré syndrome.

Membranous nephropathy (MN) is one of the most common causes of nephrotic syndrome (NS) in adults. It may be primary, usually mediated by IgG4 anti-phospholipase A2 autoantibodies or secondary to various other conditions. Guillain- Barré syndrome (GBS) has been associated with MN, but a cause and effect relation has not been proven. We present a case of concurrent development of GBS and severe NS, with renal biopsy demonstrating MN. IgG4 stain was negative, indicating that most likely, the MN was secondary and probably caused by the underlying GBS

Fecal occult blood and fecal calprotectin as point-of-care markers of intestinal morbidity in Ugandan children with Schistosoma mansoni infection.

BACKGROUND: Calprotectin is a calcium-binding cytoplasmic protein found in neutrophils and increasingly used as a marker of bowel inflammation. Fecal occult blood (FOB) is also a dependable indicator of bowel morbidity. The objective of our study was to determine the applicability of these tests as surrogate markers of Schistosoma mansoni intestinal morbidity before and after treatment with praziquantel (PZQ). METHODS: 216 children (ages 3-9 years old) from Buliisa District in Lake Albert, Uganda were examined and treated with PZQ at baseline in October 2012 with 211 of them re-examined 24 days later for S. mansoni and other soil transmitted helminths (STH). POC calprotectin and FOB assays were performed at both time points on a subset of children. Associations between the test results and infection were analysed by logistic regression. RESULTS: Fecal calprotectin concentrations of 150-300 µg/g were associated with S. mansoni egg patent infection both at baseline and follow up (OR: 12.5 P = 0.05; OR: 6.8 P = 0.02). FOB had a very strong association with baseline anemia (OR: 9.2 P = 0.03) and medium and high egg intensity schistosomiasis at follow up (OR: 6.6 P = 0.03; OR: 51.3 P = 0.003). Both tests were strongly associated with heavy intensity S. mansoni infections. There was a significant decrease in FOB and calprotectin test positivity after PZQ treatment in those children who had egg patent schistosomiasis at baseline. CONCLUSIONS: Both FOB and calprotectin rapid assays were found to correlate positively and strongly with egg patent S. mansoni infection with a positive ameloriation response after PZQ treatment indicative of short term reversion of morbidity. Both tests were appropriate for use in the field with excellent operational performance and reliability. Due to its lower-cost which makes its scale-up of use affordable, FOB could be immediately adopted as a monitoring tool for PC campaigns for efficacy evaluation before and after treatment