People involved professionally in medical education (CME administrators, journal editors) sometimes ask me if there is any value in information posted on medical blogs since most blogs are "one-man show" and data is not independently verified. These points are valid but I believe some blogs can enhance the educational experience by providing unfiltered, real-life description of clinical cases which will rarely be found in medical textbooks. See two examples below:
Bread and Butter. M.D.O.D.
Heart of 140 bpm was the key that something more was going in this young man with chest pain who turned out to have a potentially life-threatening tension pneumothorax. We had a patient with unexplained sinus tachycardia in 120s on our inpatient service and although her pneumonia was getting better, I insisted on further investigation to look for underlying cause of tachycardia. TTE was normal but TEE showed large aortic valve vegetations and valve perforation which required a surgical repair. Vitals signs are called like that because they are truly of vital importance.
Clinical Cases and Images: Tension Pneumothorax.
The Pressure Is On. The Happy Hospitalist, 02/2008.
Dyspneic. DB’s Medical Rants.
Robert Centor describes a case of CHF exacerbation which was mislabeled as COPD exacerbation. A focused physical examination (and a BNP of 1300) helped make the correct diagnosis.
Clinical Cases and Images: COPD vs. CHF Exacerbation.