I love summer...and BBQs.

I'm pretty much livin' the high life right now. I'm in the middle of my Peds rotation during a time of year when kids generally aren't sick. Clinics are cancelled, docs are on holidays, kids are enjoying thier summer. I'm at a peripheral hospital where all the residents, nurses, and docs are super nice and do good teaching. The call rooms here are pretty sweet with real beds and real bedding (unlike the 50 year old hospital beds and sketchy sheets you normally get). The lounge has a fully stocked kitchen (fruit, cheese, bread, bagels, yogurt, juice, milk, cereal, coffee, tea, condiments, icecream). We have a new gym complete with treadmill, eliptical, rowing machine, free weights, and plasma TV. A large screen TV sits in another lounge with 4 couches. Even better than home. And I'm extra lucky because, the NICU is full so no more sick babies can come here and the maternity ward has no laboring moms on it right now. What shall I do?!??! Hmmm study or sleep???

I was called to the ward earlier to evaluate a patient who had some abnormal lab results. He was admitted a few days ago with abdo pain, vomiting and diarrhea. We thought he had some sort of stomach flu, but he wasn't getting better with any of our treatments like IV fluids. We redid his bloodwork...hence me being called to the ward:
Nurse: His hemoglobin dropped from 153 to 102!
Me: I know he had some blood in his stool, but not enough to drop his hemoglobin. Let me see the other labs...
Nurse: His platelets are down to 44 too.
Me: What were they before?
Nurse: 280.
Me: What does his urine look like?
Nurse: It's funny looking...like tea.
Me: What's his creatinine? (Marker of kidney function)
Nurse: 340, up from 80 before!
Me: Call in Dr. X. He has to go to the children's hospital. He has HUS. I'll be up in a sec.

For those of you who don't know, HUS is hemolytic-uremic syndrome AKA Hamburger Disease. Some patients (especially kids) go into renal failure after a bout of E. coli O157:H7 food poisoning. You've read about it in the news.

Yea me! Maybe I have learned something this year!!!!!!!!!!!