News & Updates

This months blog post is a little different to usual, because it is as relevant to parents and carers of children as it is to health professionals seeing children with fever (high temperature). Consequently, the language used here won’t be the usual medical terminology that you’ll see in my other blogs, rather, everyday language so […]

It is unacceptably late at night and you are working in a delightfully appointed urgent treatment centre, complete with high end espresso machine and snacks in each clinical room. Of course, being a publicly funded service, the espresso machine is knackered and the snacks have all been snaffled but it’s nice to dream. Anyway; your

You see an 18month old girl presenting with cough, fever and loss of appetite for the last 2 days. Parents are worried today because she now has a ‘wheeze’ and seems breathless. She is ordinarily fit and well aside from frequent coughs and colds. UTD imms, born term + 3 by spontaneous vaginal delivery. Attends

You see a 35yo F who presents with unilateral leg swelling over the previous 36hrs. She is a fit, healthy active woman with no previous medical history and no previous history of blood clots. She takes oral hormonal contraception. She thinks she might have pulled a muscle whilst out running a couple of days ago.

This weeks post will consider the patient with inflamed legs. It’s a subject that whilst not entirely thrilling, is brimming with myth, legend and here say galore. So….. it is my hope that we can put a lot of this illogical nonsense to bed. Broadly speaking inflamed legs will have at least 1 of these

It’s been a while, but the blog is back and ready to kick off 2021 with a………Well, not really a bang, but more of a pathetic little pffffftt!. This weeks post is courtesy of Gareth Ward an Advanced Paramedic Practitioner in general practice in the south west and examines Leptospirosis, a relatively rare and easily

A 65Yr old female presents to you setting with a 2 week history of intermittent but daily episodes of palpitations described as erratic and irregular, occasional episodes of unprovoked dizziness (once or twice per week) and exertional breathlessness most of the time when climbing up stairs. So what are we looking at here? One possibility

35yo female fallen from a first floor window onto a concrete hard standing. She was witnessed to fall and land head first! She is unresponsive, hyperventilating with markedly increased respiratory effort. There is an obvious head injury but there are no other apparent injuries. For those of you working in pre-hospital care, the term neuroprotection

You’ve seen a 45yo patient with a sudden onset of vomiting, dizziness, ‘off balance’ and bumping into things. Most of you will have encountered this presentation many times before and attributed the symptoms to a minor illness. However. A small (albeit important) proportion of these will have a serious cause. This week we look at

You see a 3yo girl in your clinical setting with a 2 week history of intermittent tummy pain (she doubles up holding her abdomen, crying). She has a poo every couple days but this isn’t anything new. Parents have brought her in today because she seems particularly distressed and keeps going to the toilet. In